I don't know about the rest of you, but I needed a little bit of a refuge from negativity on Sunday.
Some days, the rest of the world can take care of the dark stuff, which is why I knew that the last thing you guys needed on Sunday night/Monday morning from me was another column on why there's a massive sense of urgency surrounding the 2020 season or why recruiting is in neutral or why The Rona is a huge historical pain in the ass for college athletics.
Maybe next week. Hell, maybe in a few days. I just didn't have it in me today and if I don't have it in me, that usually means you sure as hell don't have it in you.
Therefore, all you're going to find inside today's article is a healthy dose of positivity. It might not quite be "Good News With John Krasinski," but it might not be far off.
I call this first section "Getting Drunk on Burnt Orange Kool-Aid" and I plan on over-serving all of you.
Let's start off with the Top 25 Reasons Why Texas Should Win The Big 12 Title In 2020.
There's no two-drink limit around these parts this weekend, so let's just get started with the damn thing.
No. 2 - Getting started with defense ...
25. Let's start off with the fact that Joseph Ossai is potentially the biggest damn defensive monster in the entire Big 12. The last time we saw Ossai he was in the midst of becoming the first FBS player in the last 20 years to record six tackles for loss and three sacks in a bowl game, but the truth of the matter is that he's just now starting to spread his wings and in a conference that lacks a lot of sure returning game-breakers, Ossai might prove to be the biggest game-breaker off the edge in this entire region of the country. We're watching a player that could potentially be entering the kind of season that leads to him being a first-round draft pick next spring in the NFL.
24. Did you know that Ossai had eight different eight-tackle games in 2019, which is the second most by a Longhorn defender in the last 20 years? He's easily the best player in the Big 12 last year that people weren't talking enough about.
23. You'll never have to see another Todd Orlando failed blitz from Williamson County on 3rd and 17 again.
22. That's because the Longhorns have one of the best defensive coordinators in the country on paper in former Ohio State DC Chris Ash. This is a guy that won four Big 10 championships while he was at Ohio State in his five seasons. As a defensive coordinator in major college football, he's had a top-25 defense four times (80 percent). Former DC Todd Orlando had one such season on his resume and it occurred in a non-power-5 conference.
21. Junior safety B.J. Foster has finally had the time needed to heal his body fully and should enter the 2020 season looking more like the player he's fully capable of becoming than he ever appeared to look a season ago. If he can stay healthy, he has a chance to be a difference-maker on the defensive side of the ball for Ash.
20. A five-man starting secondary featuring Jalen Green, D'Shawn Jamison, Anthony Cook, BJ Foster and Caden Sterns has 116 games and 59 starts worth of experience. That's not to say that this will be the five that are on the field the most because Chris Adimora, Chris Brown and Josh Thompson will all compete for starting positions as well, but the bottom line with this group pretty much remains the same - a group full of very highly ranked prospects is no longer young. The Texas secondary this season is experienced and has been through a ton of fire. There's every reason to believe that a group that is starting to emerge into upperclassmen is positioned to finally take off.
19. Junior defensive tackle Keondre Coburn is another player who is no longer a kid and is poised to be the best version of himself that we've ever seen.
18. Speaking of upperclassmen, I can make a serious case that seniors Marquez Bimage and Ta' Quan Graham have been playing out of position their entire careers and will finally be in a position in 2020 to get the best football out of them. Same with junior Moro Ojomo.
17. Freshmen defensive linemen Alfred Collins and Vernon Broughton are probably the best pair of true freshmen defensive linemen that the Longhorns have had entering the program at the same time since 2010's addition of Jackson Jeffcoat and Reggie Wilson.
16. Junior DeMarvion Overshown is entering his third season in the program and is finally playing a position at will linebacker that should give him both playing time and the perfect platform to take off. All this kid needs is a healthy body and everything else should take care of itself.
No. 3 - Moving to the offensive side of the ball ...
15. While the Longhorns lost Devin Duvernay and Collin Johnson at wide receiver, Texas returns junior Brennan Eagles, who is coming off of one of the best sophomore seasons among wide receivers in the history of the Texas program and might be the most physically gifted wide receiver the Longhorns have had in the program in a decade. Eagles is posed for a monster season.
14. The wide receiver group as a whole is loaded with as much talent at the position as the program has ever seen. Jake Smith is year older. Jordan Whittington is hopefully healthy. Josh Moore is back from suspension. Marcus Washington is another rising star. Troy Omeire just arrived. Everywhere you look is a receiver for Sam Ehlinger to turn to that is worthy of a ton of targets this season.
13. Oh, and former Michigan receiver Tarik Black is arriving on the scene as a player with NFL ambitions and the kind of talent that should push all of the names mentioned to higher levels.
12. You could also make a case that the tight end and quarterback rooms are as loaded with talent in 2020 as any year in the last decade.
11. True sophomore Jared Wiley might be a star in the making that senior Cade Brewer isn't going to be able to hold off for playing time this season, not if the buzz around the program about Wiley continues to grow. This is a kid that started two games last year as a true freshman.
10. Have I mentioned yet that the Longhorns actually have a capable offensive coordinator in control of things and not whatever the hell we're going to call the last three seasons under Tim Beck? Not since Bryan Harsin was the offensive coordinator has there been this much excitement about a Texas offensive coordinator on the 40 Acres. Not having the wrong people in charge of things does matter. A lot.
9. Jordan Whittington might be the most talented offensive player in the entire Texas program and I've barely mentioned his presence on the roster at this point.
8. Drew Mehringer isn't coaching wide receivers, which means there likely won't be a player revolt in the wide receiver room this season!
7. Freshman Bijan Robinson is about to be on the 40 Acres. There's a better than 50-percent chance that he'll be an impact player that eventually becomes a player drafted in the top three rounds of the 2023 or 2024 drafts and probably a 20-percent chance or so that he ends up being a future first-round pick.
6. While Robinson is set to arrive soon, returning backs Keaontay Ingram (5.9) and Roschon Johnson (5.3) both averaged more than 5.0 yards per carry last season. For all of the discussion about what the pair didn't do a year ago, both averaging north of 5.0 yards per carry for the entire year is the kind of thing that Texas hasn't done very often with its running backs in most of the last decade.
5. Texas has arguably the best offensive tackle in the country in junior Sam Cosmi.
4. Cosmi is far from the only productive member of the offensive line that is set to return. In fact, the Longhorns will return four lineman this season that have started at least one season's worth of games in their careers.
https://twitter.com/PFF_College/status/1265787368369348608?ref_src=twsrc^tfw|twcamp^tweetembed|twterm^1265787368369348608&ref_url=https://texas.forums.rivals.com/threads/how-about-this-as-a-positive-going-into-2020.473931/
No. 4 - The Sam Ehlinger section ...
3. The Longhorns not only return the league's best quarterback in Sam Ehlinger, but we're talking about a player that enters this season trying to find his way onto the Texas Quarterback Mount Rushmore.
2. Having Ehlinger means that the Longhorns will have the quarterback edge on paper in every single game they play this season.
1. Ehlinger isn't working with Tim Beck any longer. He's working with the best offensive coordinator of his career. It seems like a really important detail to get excited about.
No. 5 - For the record ...
Before anyone asks, I believe I last wrote a Get Drunk on Burnt Orange Kool-Aid column back in the spring of 2017.
I'm not trying to be negative, but it didn't go well.
No. 6 - Fascinating 2022 Recruiting Numbers ...
As I put the finishing touches on the debut of this week's Lone Star Recruiting Top 100, I thought I'd give you guys an early look at how aggressively the Texas coaches are approaching the 2022 recruiting class inside the state of Texas.
Take a look below.
By positions, the early breakdown of offers looks like this:
QB: 1
RB: 4
WR: 5
TE: 1
OL: 5
DT: 1
DE: 3
LB: 3
DB: 8
ATH: 3
Considering that the staff didn't even have the spring evaluation process to lean on, offering 34 juniors before the start of June is quite the testament to how ahead of the curve the Longhorns are trying to get with the 2022 class.
By comparison, here are the 2022 offer numbers inside the state of Texas by other schools of note:
Oklahoma: 26
LSU: 24
Texas A&M: 23
Ohio State: 15
Alabama: 15
No. 7 – BUY or SELL …
(Sell) Jamison has as good of a chance as any as finishing in the top spot, but I'm going to take the field, which obviously includes the talented Texas safeties.
(Sell) NO NEGATIVITY THIS WEEK!!!!!!!
(Buy) Probably. But, I wasn't wrong.
(Buy) I don't buy this to say it means Texas wins a national title and Ehlinger wins the Heisman, rather I'm buying this as a way of saying that I believe Yurcich will get the best season of Ehlinger that we've ever seen.
(Buy) I'M DRUNK ON BURNT ORANGE KOOL-AID!!!!!!
(Sell) Oklahoma State might have two of the top five, but it doesn't have three. You can make a strong case that any top five list has to have Ehlinger and Iowa State's Brock Purdy in it. If we're including offensive linemen, the Cowboys definitely don't have three of the top five players and I'm not even sure they'd have two.
(Buy) Called that shot the day he committed.
(Buy) It's not setting the bar super high, but this group will be better than Charlie's 2014 defense.
(Buy) Yup.
(Sell) If he stays healthy, Brennan Eagles is about to post a monster season.
(Buy) History gives us some mixed trends, as the last two seasons required a Heisman finalist to make the playoffs, but that wasn't really the case in 2017 or 2016. Yet, outside of a Lamar Jackson or Christian McCaffery (generational talents), most of the recent Heisman finalists have been in the playoffs. Texas isn't making the playoffs without an all-time season from Ehlinger, the kind that would see him in New York.
(Buy) Although I reserve the right to change my mind as soon as Liverpool wins the league.
No. 8 - Scattershooting on the world of sports ...
... It's weird to me that Major League Baseball hasn't learned from its history. Frankly, the owners need to step up the plate in a way they have given the appearance of being incapable of.
... How about this for a Friday night news dump...
... After setting the DVR to the Lance Armstrong documentary last week, I have to admit to never watching it this week. The lack of buzz surrounding it killed my attention span.
... On the other hand, I finally watched Sunderland Til I Die on Netflix. I probably need to re-rank my Top 10 all-time sports documentaries. Holy hell, if you're the type of person that likes a fantastic car crash, you need to check it out.
... I watched more UFC this weekend. The Rona has been good for Dana White in a weird way.
... After his loss on Saturday night, Tyron Woodley will only be in the main event of whatever card he's on for his next five matches.
... Jon Jones just turned the light heavyweight division in the UFC into so much dust that when he announced that he was walking away from the title on Sunday and taking the rest of 2021 off, I realized the rest of the division can pretty much do the same. They are all JV compared to him.
... No sports on a Sunday didn't cause me to scratch my NASCAR itch at all. In fact, I'm pretty sure I don't have a NASCAR itch.
... Kind of missed watching Tom Brady and Pey-Dirt Manning playing golf this weekend.
... Philippe Coutinho to Chelsea? That would not make me happy. I'd rather see him at Leicester or Newcastle.
... Germany keeps on paving the way for everyone in big-time sports with the way they are handling the return of the Bundesliga.
No. 9 - The List: Tupac Shakur ...
It's been a while since I took a deep-dive into Pac's pile of music, but I was feeling it this week after listening to his debut album (Strictly 4 My ******).
Full disclosure: Pac's second album might be my favorite album of the entire 1990s. It's hard for me to do a Pac list and not include half of this album, much like I struggle to do an Outkast list without doing the same for "Southernplayalisticadillacmuzik"
So, if you see this list and thinks it tilts to heavily towards his earliest stuff ... now you know before you even have to ask.
10. Keep Ya Head Up
9. Ambitions of a Rider
8. Dear Mama
7. So Many Tears
6. 2 of Amerikaz Most Wanted
5. Hit'em Up
4. California Love
3. Hail Mary
2. I Get Around
1. Holler If Ya Hear Me
No.10 - And finally...
Man's best friend.
Last edited:
