Is there any way to agree on what a losable game amounts to?
Pretty damn subjective, right? Maybe even more than calling something "damn good."
Let's start with 50-50. That's obvious, right?
What about 60-40? This is just me ... but ... that counts as losable.
65-35? That's basically 1 in 3 ... again, losable.
70-30? Now we're getting into the first bit of grey area. I still think it's a losable game, but I stopped and thought hard about poker hands with 70-percent win rates and I came away thinking ... there's still a lot of risk there to not call it losable.
Here's where I eventually found myself hitting the "safe" button ... 80 percent. If one team is going to beat another team four out of every five times they play (at a minimum), then we're starting to get into the territory of pocket aces in poker pre-flop against pretty much any other starting hand that a player could hold. Yes, anything can still happen, but you aren't folding against anyone pre-flop, even if you know that there's still a really outside chance that fate will deliver an upset.
So, 1 in 5 is my subjective cut-off.
By now, you're probably wondering what the hell I'm getting at. Well, I'm glad you are wondering. When I was looking at this year's home schedule for Texas Football, I found myself wondering if anyone would be listed as an underdog by less than 10 points this season? Then I found myself wondering whether I thought the 2025 Oklahoma Sooners would be better than 1 in 5 against the 2025 Texas Longhorns.
I'm not so sure. Not when you consider that Texas has won two of the last three games against the Sooners by a combined 83-3 score.
Is there anyone else on the schedule other than the road games in Columbus, Gainesville and Athens that might qualify?
I'm not sure either home game against Arkansas or Texas A&M counts. On the road? Sure. In Austin? Those would be massive upsets engineered by teams with significant talent/quarterback deficiencies.
Perhaps there will be some pushback to the language used, but Texas has three losable games on its schedule - the big three. The other nine games on the schedule are less losable games and much more major upsets than anything else.
That means that if Texas can avoid one of those 1 in 5s this season, it will make the playoffs with a single road win in any of the three major road games on the 2025 marquee. Two wins out of three will have the Longhorns back in the SEC title game and in a position to emerge with a first-round bye.
That's the entire regular season in a nutshell. Be Floyd Mayweather Jr. against the pretenders and turn into Joe Louis a couple of times on the road against top-10 foes.
Pull that off and it's all there for the taking. Considering the massive raw talent advantage that Texas will own in 10 of the 12 games on its schedule, it doesn't feel like a major ask.
This is what it means to have arrived as a national power.
No. 2 – Updated Historical Texas Football Attrition ...
Every year, I do this very nerdy thing where I update the Texas Football annual attrition numbers. I'd be embarrassed by my focus on potentially trivial (to some) things like off-season attrition if it didn't provide graphics like the one below.
The numbers tell a story about the trends in the sport with regard to roster turnover that don't require a lot of words.
Simply see below ...
2025 (8/15/24-8/14/25)
(15) Malik Agbo (transfer), Tausili Akana (transfer), Bert Auburn (transfer), Jaray Bledsoe (transfer), Aaron Bryant (transfer), Jay'Vion Cole (transfer), Johntay Cook (transfer), Freddie DuBose (transfer), Justice Finkley (transfer), Derion Gullette (transfer), Michael Kern (transfer), Max Merril (early graduation), Sydir Mitchell (transfer), Amari Niblack (transfer) and Tia Savea (transfer)
2024 (8/15/23-8/14/24)
(21) B.J. Allen (transfer), Xavion Brice (transfer), Terrance Brooks (transfer), S'Maje Burrell (transfer), Casey Cain (transfer), Trill Carter (transfer), Jalen Catalon (transfer), Kitan Crawford (transfer), Sawyer Goram-Welch (transfer), Austin Jordan (transfer), Peyton Kirkland (transfer), Maalik Murphy (transfer), Isaiah Neyor (transfer), Savion Redd (transfer), Kris Ross (thrown off team), Zac Swanson (transfer), J'Mond Tapp (transfer), Jerrin Thompson (transfer), Larry Turner-Gooden (transfer), Billy Walton (transfer) and Charles Wright (transfer)
2023 (8/15/22-8/14/23)
(19) Jaden Alexis (transfer), Junior Angilau (transfer), Derrick Brown (transfer), Hudson Card (transfer), J.D. Coffey (transfer), Prince Dorbah (transfer), Jaylen Garth (transfer), Agiye Hall (transfer), D.J. Harris (transfer), Ishmael Ibraheem (transfer), Jamier Johnson (transfer), Trevell Johnson (transfer), Andrej Karic (transfer), Ovie Oghoufo (transfer), Troy Omeire (transfer), Logan Parr (transfer), Isaac Pearson (transfer), Devin Richardson (transfer) and Brenen Thompson (transfer),
2022 (8/15/21-8/14/22)
(24) David Abiara (transfer), Ayodele Adeoye (transfer), Chris Adimora (transfer), Ryan Bujcevski (transfer), Marques Caldwell (transfer), Terrence Cooks (transfer), Kelvontay Dixon (transfer), B.J. Foster (transfer), Rafiti Ghirmai (transfer), Dajon Harrison (transfer), Jaden Hullaby (transfer), Isaiah Hookfin (medical retirement), Tyler Johnson (transfer), Keithron Lee (transfer), Kai Money (retirement), Joshua Moore (transfer), Tyler Owens (transfer), Jordan Thomas (transfer), Casey Thompson (transfer), Marcus Tillman (transfer), Myron Warren (transfer), Marcus Washington (transfer), Jared Wiley (transfer) and Al'Vonte Woodard (transfer)
2021 (8/15/20-8/14/21)
(14) Marquez Bimage (grad transfer), Derrian Brown (medical), Daniel Carson (transfer), Malcolm Epps (transfer), Jalen Green (transfer), Byron Vaughns (transfer), Keontay Ingram (transfer), Reese Leitao (retired), Kennedy Lewis (transfer), Juwan Mitchell (transfer), Reese Moore (transfer), Jake Smith (transfer), Willie Tyler (transfer) and Kenyatta Watson (transfer)
2020 (8/15/19-8/14/20)
(13) Xavien Alford (transfer), Kobe Boyce (retired), D'Andre Christmas-Giles (grad transfer), Max Cummins (medical), Donovan Duvernay (transfer), De'Gabriel Floyd (medical), Ja'Quinden Jackson (transfer), Caleb Johnson (transfer), Peter Mpagi (medical), Jordan Pouncey (transfer), Javonne Sheppard (transfer), J.P. Urquidez (transfer) and Gerald Wilbon (grad transfer)
2019 (8/15/18-8/14/19)
(13) DeMarco Boyd (off-field), Shane Buechele (graduate transfer), Toneil Carter (transfer), Davion Curtis (transfer), Andrew Fitzgerald (retired), Tristian Houston (transfer), Patrick Hudson (health), Bru McCoy (transfer), Kyle Porter (transfer), Cameron Rising (transfer), Joshua Rowland (graduate transfer), Cameron Townsend (transfer) and Mike Williams (transfer)
No. 3 - Quarterback stuff ...
I can't help it, but occasionally I find myself thinking about Texas quarterbacks.
Yes, that means Arch Manning. Yes, that still means Quinn Ewers. Over the weekend, I found myself pondering two subjects.
Subject No. 1
1. What if Quinn Ewers either hadn't played well against Michigan in week two of the 2024 season or had played incredibly well against either Georgia in the SEC title game or against Ohio State in the playoffs?
Let's start with that latter. For a guy that went in the seventh round of the draft, how different would his draft prospects have looked if he had played lights out against the Buckeyes or Dawgs? If he has a Michael Penix vs. Texas type of performance, it's crazy to me how much different his eventual situation would have looked. For all of the stuff all of us have moaned about with regard to Ewers’ output, I'll forever believe that he was really just one monumental performance away from a completely different fate.
2. As with the performance against Michigan, I still think it's the best performance of his career. It's the first and really only time in his entire career where I thought he walked on some water throughout the game. Everything that he's capable of was present in that game. The defending national champions finished the 2024 season as the No. 12 team in the Sagarin rankings and Ewers put it on their ass to the point that the offense just coasted to 31 points in the game.
Outside of the Michigan game, Ewers played four other games against top 15 teams from the Sagarin rankings and Texas scored 15 (UGA #1), 16 (UGA #2), 17 (Arizona State) and 14 (Ohio State) offensive points in regulation in those games. Throw the game against No. 22 Texas A&M in there (17 points) as well. If you take away the Michigan game, which we all held on to as a moment of light for Ewers (especially when we wondered if injuries were bothering him), he was the quarterback of an offense that underperformed like it was Penn State all season.
Would it have been easier to have the Ewers discussion if the unicorn performance in Ann Arbor had been a little less unicorny?
Subject No. 2
One of the amazing truths about the 2025 season is that there is an expectation that even though the offense doesn't look better on paper at running back, wide receiver, tight end or along the offensive line, there's extreme hope/confidence that the offense should be better in 2025 than in 2024 because of the expected rise in quality of performance at the quarterback position.
If that's true, isn't that expectation the single biggest checkmate moment inside of a conversation about who should have started at the position in the second half of last season?
One guy was the player who led the offense in a way that there's a sense that it can be strongly improved this season in spite of losing seven drafted NFL players, while the other guy is the one who seems almost entirely responsible for the expected improvement.
But, I digress ...
No. 4 – May I stand on my soap-box for a moment ...
SEC head football coaches averaged $8.1 million dollars per year in salary in 2024. There are 16 SEC teams, which means that the combined money earned by those 16 individuals was nearly 130 million dollars.
ONE-HUNDRED-AND-30-MILLION.
You're just going to forgive me rolling my eyes this week and the crybaby complaining from the $130 million dollar club about the need for THEM to have only one open Portal window per year.
Is that what's best for the student-athletes? Of course not, it's about control. It's about making the jobs of these affluent coaches as easy as possible because, gosh darn it, it was hard last year for these multi-millionaires to walk and chew gum at the same time in December. Who cares if it makes zero sense for the athletes involved to not be able to make moves at mid-term like regular students and will almost certainly get destroyed in a court of law ... it's about making things as cozy as possible for the most pampered of people in college athletics, right?
Good grief, I just can't stand the belly-aching from men who would make their players run gassers if they dared to possess the same level of requested coddling if they found off-season workouts inconvenient with all of the other tasks given to them during the spring. The irony is so thick you can suffocate on it.
Ok, rant over. Feel free to tell me how terribly wrong I am.
No. 5 – Four things on the commitment of Mark Bowman to USC ...
a. The cost of business in the 2026 cycle continues to skyrocket. The numbers being mentioned with the No. 2 tight end in the country per Rivals (No. 30 overall) include him making $10 million over the duration of the deal and anywhere between $3-7 million in the first year. If the Longhorns are going to end up being serious players for Bowman, it's going to take the most expensive NIL in the history of the program to close the deal.
b. It's USC. No offense to the Trojans, but Lincoln Riley will fall on his face again this season and Bowman will be a guy that can be poached.
c. Keep in mind that Texas very, very rarely plays its NIL cards this early in the recruiting process. Their strategy is to watch the market while they never stop pressing for the nation's top prospects and they'll swoop in late with an immense amount of pressure being created by making (at times) market-changing-offers (see Justus Terry). Texas is a firm believer that revealing your NIL cards too early gives its competition too much time to plan a counter response. It wasn't lured into many early bidding wars last year when it signed the No. 1 overall class and I wouldn't expect it to change the tactics.
d. How in the hell is the Deloitte Auditing going to possibly begin to supervise the fair market value for NIL per player in situations like this? How can Deloitte tell Bowman without a lawsuit that his subjective NIL value is less than what he's being offered as a high school senior? I think this entire plan has a chance to be a disaster if Deloitte tries to rule with an iron fist.
No. 6 - About the Texas Baseball Team ...
Brutal.
Not since Texas got dealt with by UC-Irvine at the Dell Diamond when Texas was the No5 overall seed in the 2007 Super Regional have I seen a team so unexpectedly come in and just mop the floor of the Longhorns.
That was humbling. That was massively disappointing. That puts a cold bucket of water onto the entire season. Hell, it might cost the athletic department the Director's Cup.
This becomes a very hard season to talk about, but there's no such thing as a baseball season in Austin being a success when you can't get out of regional play.... at home.
Not the standard.
No. 7 - The Moment Has Arrived ...
Texas Softball has been waiting for a crossover moment to occur in the program where it could take the step of great program to elite program.
It happened on Saturday when the Longhorns took out Oklahoma 4-2 in Oklahoma City to send the Longhorns into the national semifinals/winner's bracket. Considering the stakes, which include being outscored 44-24 in the last six match-ups (all losses) against the Sooners in the state of Oklahoma, the win over OU on Saturday might actually be the most significant win in the history of Texas Softball.
Now it's time to close the deal. You can't beat the Russians in hockey back in 1980 if you're the US Olympic team and then lose to Finland in the gold medal game. You have to win. A national championship has never been so close.
First things, first... take out Tennessee with a game to fool around with. It's time.
No. 8 – BUY or SELL …
(Buy) Tom Cruise is a different level of movie star than Freeman, who we didn't even know until he was about to turn 50. Cruise has been the star of all movie stars for basically the last 40+ years. That being said, Freeman's five best movies are better than Cruise's.
(Buy) Gimmie all of that.
(Sell) If Texas Baseball doesn't make it to the Super Regionals, it might happen this year.
(Sell) It would be bad form on my part to switch my softball picks at this point. I said no a week ago and I'm not jinxing anything.
(Sell) God no.
(Sell) I'd buy more stock on everyone but Muhammad.
(Sell) If they had answers, we wouldn't be asking these questions.
(Buy) Are we giving too much benefit of the doubt or does punting, place-kicking and the return game all have to be better because they were so average last year that the bar isn't actually that high?
(Buy) $36 million is a ballpark number I have reported numerous times. Your assignment is a good one and I'll take the challenge in next week's column. It'll take some time.
(Sell) These restrictions are never going to hold up in court without a collective bargaining agreement.
(Sell) What's the question? Anyways, I'm not buying that Austin can support it.
(Sell) Too big of a leap of faith for me.
(Buy) Seven years? Yeah, I'll take some of that.
(Buy) Of course. Last year's starting line-up had five NFL players on it. I'm not convinced you can say that this group definitely has more than three. The tackle play looks worse on paper. Same with the interior of the line, the center position and overall depth.
No. 9 – Scattershooting all over the place …
... Ho-hum, Scottie Scheffler won another event this weekend. Wake me when the next major arrives.
... Thunder vs. Pacers for an NBA title. Give me the Thunder in 5.
... Anthony Edwards claims that no one is going to outwork him in the off-season and I don't believe him. Great player. Bad liar.
... I'm serious when I say this ... I'd like to see Jerry Jones coach the Cowboys for one season before he dies. Go be Ted Lasso, Jerry. You have my approval.
... Josh Allen married Hailee Steinfeld this weekend. Isn't that better than winning the Super Bowl?
... Do any of you actually watch the UFL?
... Go Edmonton. Close the deal.
... PSG won the Champions League the night it went to Anfield and beat the best team in England in penalties after the Reds were unable to unlock a 1-1 tie with a goal at home ... Kudos to PSG. The best team in Europe won this year. It'll be up to everyone to counter the moves they made this season.
... Paris turned into Columbus, Ohio after the win with more than 200 arrests and a couple of deaths. Or was Columbus always acting like Paris the entire time?
No. 10 - The List: Top 10 John Turturro ...
This one comes via request from last week after I realized I wasn't capable of putting together a modern day video games list, which also came by request.
Therefore, I cranked up the movies list this week for one of the great character actors or all-time. I watched a dozen movies this week starring John Turturro, including five that ended up making the top 10.
Let's do this...
Honorable Mention: Fading Gigolo (2013), Raging Bull (1980), Hannah and Her Sisters (1986), Mr. Deeds (2002), Clockers (1995), Transformers (2007), Gung Ho (1986), The Color of Money (1986), 13 Conversations About One Thing (2001) and To Live and Die in L.A. (1986)
10. Mo Better Blues (1990)
It's one of the great Denzell movies of all-time and while Turturro isn't one of the leads in the movie, he plays a significant part and I felt compelled to sneak this one into the Top 10 over Fading Gigolo.
9. The Batman (2022)
He's the crime boss in the most underrated Batman movie ever made.
8. He Got Game (1998)
One of three Spike Lee joints that make the list.
7. Rounders (1998)
We're starting to get into hallowed ground. I have a feeling some will argue that this needs to be in the top 5.
6. Barton Fink (1991)
Every scene with John Goodman and Turturro is gold.
5. Miller’s Crossing (1990)
Kind of overrated, but it definitely makes the top 5, almost entirely on the merits of Turturro's performance.
4. Quiz Show (1994)
It's been 30+ years, but this one is still a banger.
3. O Brother, Where Art Thou (2000)
Do I have this too high?
2. The Big Lebowski (1998)
I considered this for the top spot, but at the end of the day ...
1. Do The Right Thing (1989)
Turturro is incredible in one of the most important movies ever made ... Spike Lee's coming out party.
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