What a difference two weeks can make.
In the aftermath of an ugly second-half performance in Stillwater, the Longhorns were fourth in a four-team pile of Big 12 schools trying to position themselves for two spots in the Big 12 Championship game.
In the 14 days that followed ...
* TCU has one foot and a couple of toes into the title game as the regular season No. 1.
* Oklahoma State has dropped back-to-back games and is suddenly in a bit of a hole with three Big 12 losses.
* Baylor has a pair of Big 12 road wins in Lubbock and Norman, which suddenly has the Bears swapping positions with Oklahoma State in the pecking order for the No. 2 spot in the championship game.
Most important for the Longhorns is that they returned to the field in Manhattan on Saturday night and with all of the carnage around them opening up a pathway to the Big 12 Championship game, Steve Sarkisian's troops won on the road for the first time in 13 months to take the pole position in a race between five teams that have either two or three losses in the conference standings.
With three games to go, the Longhorns will play in Arlington in the first week of December with three more wins. More important than Saturday's game against undefeated TCU is a looming match-up with the Bears at home that could emerge as a winner-take-all game for that title game slot.
Consider the schedules of the teams that remain.
* Baylor: vs. Kansas State, vs. TCU and at Texas
* Kansas State: at Baylor, at West Virginia and vs. Kansas
* Oklahoma State: vs. Iowa State, at Oklahoma and vs. West Virginia
* Kansas: at Texas Tech, vs. Texas and at Kansas State
If any of those teams can run the table, they might very well take the No. 2 spot away from the Longhorns but it's hard to imagine any of these teams in their current states being able to run the table on the remaining three games. More than likely Oklahoma State and KU have losses in them that would take them to four losses. The loser of the KSU/Baylor game next weekend will also have three losses.
No matter the outcomes of the KSU/Baylor and TCU/Texas, the Baylor game after Thanksgiving feels massive.
If Texas beats TCU, it would still need to beat Baylor (and KU) to potentially avoid losing a three-loss head-to-head tiebreaker with the Bears, even if Baylor loses one of its next two games.
While the Bears might be the enemy in a few weeks, Texas fans should probably prefer that the Bears beat Kansas State this weekend because KSU could coast to wins against West Virginia and KU in the following weeks to end the regular season with a 7-2 conference record.
A loss to Baylor might nuke KSU's season because in the event of a tie with three losses at the end of the season, the Wildcats would be at tiebreaker disadvantages with the two teams most likely to finish tied with them.
As big as this week's game against TCU feels, it's probably more important for the Longhorns to beat Baylor at the end of the season than it is to beat the Horned Frogs.
Of course, winning out takes care of everything, regardless of what happens in the other games, but make no mistake about it ... the stakes will likely be enormous when the Bears come to town with a stomach full of turkey on the 25th. As long as Baylor beats Kansas State and Texas beats KU, nothing else will likely matter.
Likely.
Isn't this fun?
No. 2 - I'm going to say it ...
Bijan Robinson has surpassed Jamaal Charles in my mind as the fourth-best running back in the history of the Texas program.
He's on the Texas running back Mount Rushmore with Ricky, Earl and Ced.
After rushing for 209 yards on Saturday night on the road at Kansas State, his seventh straight game of 100 yards or more, Robinson needs to average only 123 yards per game in the next three weeks to surpass Charles to become the school's No. 4 all-time leading rusher. Should he play in a Big 12 Championship game and/or the bowl game that the Longhorns qualified for on Saturday, he might just put some distance between himself and the ultra-dynamic, ultra-explosive Charles.
Believe me, I don't say these words lightly, but consider the following:
1. Robinson's seven straight 100-yard games this season is more than twice as good as the best stretch of football that Charles put together while he was at Texas from 2005-07 (had a three-game 100+ yard streak in 2007). Robinson also had a string of five straight 100+ yard performances in 2021.
2. Overall, Robinson has 16 100+ yard rushing performances in his career to date, which is double the number that Charles had in his career at Texas (8).
3. Robinson has five games of more than 100 yards rushing against ranked teams. As crazy as it is to believe, Charles did it only twice.
4. Robinson is probably the best receiver out of the backfield in the history of the Texas program, as he has more receptions, yards touchdowns and a higher yards per reception than Charles, who was no slouch out of the backfield as a receiving threat. While Robinson won't finish his career with more receptions than Eric Metcalf, he has already surpassed him in receiving yards, receiving touchdowns and yards per reception (13.4 vs. 11.1), despite playing one less season.
5. Robinson trails only D'Onta Foreman and Jimmy Saxton by 0.1 yards per carry for the highest yards per carry of any running back in school history (minimum 150 carries). As far as I can tell, he also has the highest yards per reception of any running back in school history that currently ranks inside the program's top 100 in receiving yards.
If he can increase his yards per carry by a mere 0.1 over the next few weeks, he could finish his career with the highest yards per carry and yards per reception of any back in school history.
This isn't rarified air. This is the rarified air of rarified air.
Apologies to Charles, who only finished his career in rarified air.
No. 3 - About Quinn...
Everyone just needs to relax.
Five-star status or not, it always made sense that Texas redshirt freshman Quinn Ewers would go through some growing pains during his first season as a starter. Sure enough, as he heads into the final three games of the season, Ewers has a fairly pedestrian 141.7 efficiency rating, which would rank fourth in the Big 12 behind Baylor's Blake Shapen (147.6) if Ewers had enough attempts to qualify (he soon will).
From my perspective, let's focus on the critical positives before we start handing out constructive criticism.
1. Against a defense that had created more interceptions (11) against opposing teams than touchdown passes (9), Ewers did not turn the ball over on Saturday night. Very quietly, that's so critically important and shouldn't be taken for granted. The thing that people were worried about the most in August wasn't an issue.
2. He played well enough to help lead his team to a road win against a ranked team with serious stakes on the line.
Don't underrate the importance of these two points as it relates to his long-term development as a player.
The constructive criticism?
1. The deep balls are a work in progress. This is actually an issue that has existed since high school, but back then people lost their minds when it was suggested that Ewers wasn't perfect. He's not. The deep ball is often one of the last pieces of the puzzle for young quarterbacks to put into place. It's an issue of timing, chemistry and mechanics all coming together, which is something that often takes more time than the fans supporting them want to give. I've always mentioned Troy Aikman as a player when discussing the deep ball because it took him a couple of years in Dallas as the No. 1 overall pick in the Draft before it became a strength in his game. Like Aikman, it's just a matter of time before it starts to come together for Ewers. How much time? That's the part that can't fully be answered.
2. It's not an issue of arm strength and arm talent because few kids from the state of Texas have ever had more, but it's a matter of harnessing that ability. From my perspective, Ewers is dynamic throwing the ball in the short, the short-intermediate and almost any throw outside of the hashmarks. On the deep-intermediate and deep areas of the passing tree, he far too often puts a little too much air under the ball. Remember that throw against Oklahoma to Ja'tavion Sanders?
Ewers can make THAT throw, which most humans walking the earth can't make, even a lot of them that play for a living on Sundays. He has the arm to throw that ball on a line 15 to 20 yards further down the field, but he doesn't do it consistently. Far too often, his mechanics cause him to float balls that require his receivers to make in-air adjustments on the ball that will lead to incompletions at this level because defensive backs are good enough to make up ground on open receivers if the ball hangs in the air too long. You can go back to his high school film and see it.
It's not a sin that he's still putting the pieces of his game together in real time as a starting quarterback at this level.
I'm not worried about Ewers. You shouldn't be either.
When it all comes together, he's going to be awesome. Until it does, he's going to be something less than that. Simple as that.
No. 4 - KELVIN MFING BANKS!!!!
In his first nine games as a college football left tackle, freshman Kelvin Banks has been forced to tangle with Alabama's Will Anderson, Texas Tech's Tyree Wilson and Kansas State's Felix Anudike-Uzoma.
All he has done is stone-wall all three of them into being mostly non-factors in more than 180 minutes of football.
It's time we stop talking about him competing for freshman all-America honors and it's time to start talking about him competing about big boy all-America honors.
He's the best offensive lineman in the Big 12 at the most stress-producing position along the line of scrimmage.
The fact that Texas will likely get another 30 games out of him before he heads off to the NFL is not just a blessing, it's a dream come true of the highest magnitude when you consider that the Longhorns haven't truly had a player like him since Justin Blalock departed in 2006.
When five stars like him truly go boom, this is what it looks like.
No. 5 - Scattershooting on the Longhorns ...
... For the first time this season, I'm really starting to wonder if Jaylan Ford will be playing in the NFL next season. A solid player early in the season, Ford has turned into the best playmaking linebacker in the Big 12. No Big 12 linebacker has more interceptions, forced fumbles and fumble recoveries. He's among the leaders at his position in tackles for loss. He might come back for a senior season, but he'll certainly have something to think about and I'm not sure how much higher of a level he would reach as a college player, which is a true nod to just how good he's been this season.
... TCU averages 43 points per game. Texas averages 36. It feels like it might take 40 on Saturday.
... TCU is first in offensive passing efficiency and Texas is sixth in defensive passing efficiency. That might very well be the battle that decides the game.
... Texas is first in the Big 12 in kickoffs. Who would have thought this would be the case through nine games?
... Barryn Sorrell leads the Longhorns with four sacks this season, but it feels like he could have 10 if he closed the deal at the point of reaching the quarterback a little better. That'll come, probably next year.
... After not catching a touchdown in the first three games of the season, Xavier Worthy leads the Big 12 with 9, which is three more than the next closest receiver. He might not hit 1,000 yards this season, but he seems to be a sure thing for double-digit touchdown receptions for the second year in a row.
... As good as Deuce Vaughn is, he can't hold a candle to the season TCU's Kendre Miller is having. If you don't know the name by now, you probably will in a few days.
... The Texas volleyball team gets a chance for revenge on Wednesday night when it plays Iowa State at Gregory. I expect an emphatic response after dropping its only match of the season two weeks ago.
No. 6 – BUY or SELL …
(Sell) The Longhorns absolutely could run the table. The two toughest games left on the schedule are home games, which Texas seems to specialize in.
(Sell) He might have too much ground to make up. He's still outside the top 10 with the oddsmakers.
(Buy) That's likely not going to happen again. The passing game as a whole left a lot to be desired.
(Sell) I think it's a bunch of small things that all add up to the struggles. I'm not a believer that these issues come down to one prevalent theme.
(Sell) It might happen, but the bottom line is that recruits don't live on week to week emotions like fans do, at least the majority of them don't.
(Sell) See above. I think it might mean more for the 2024 class than the 2023 class.
(Buy) That hurts, but it's not completely off-base.
(Sell) He's getting his money, you better believe that.
(Sell) There's still a part of me that thinks D'Shawn Jamison is the answer to this question. He rarely gets tested ... and that's for good reasons. Ford is the biggest playmaker on the unit, though.
(Sell) It's a little soon to say such a thing definitively. .
(Buy) A&M still has those two convinced that its NIL pathways are more profitable and easier to cash in with. We'll see if that changes. Their ears are open.
(Sell) TCU isn't going to be held to 20 points. The rest of that stuff might happen, though.
(Buy) In general, Kyle Flood likes bigger humans at guard, which could lead these two to a battle for the center spot.
(Push) I think it all comes down to the final three games.
(Sell) It's a good question, but my confidence in this team's ability to win games is growing, especially with two out of three at home.
No. 7 - Congrats, Astros fans ...
The better team won. As disappointing as it is to lose a World Series as a Phillies fan, the reality of how good the Astros are compared to everyone else in the sport was always evident.
Better pitching. Better hitting. Better performance in the clutch.
It feels like the Astros were just better than the Phillies in every key area over the six-game series.
The Astros are a historically great team. Enjoy it and stop worrying about what other people say.
It's beneath a team with two titles and four World Series appearances during this run they are on.
No. 8 - Scattershooting on anything and everything ...
... If I had a vote that mattered ...
1. Georgia
2 Michigan
3. Ohio State
4. TCU
5. Tennessee
6. USC
7. Oregon
8. LSU
9. UCLA
10. Ole Miss
... Heisman Ballot: 1. RB Bijan Robinson (Texas), 2. QB Caleb Williams (USC), 3. QB CJ Stroud (Ohio State), 4. RB Blake Corum (Michigan) and 5. QB Hendon Hooker (Tennessee)
... Brian Kelly is showing what you get when you hire a head coach with a guarantee on the box. He might not be a natural fit at LSU, but that dude can coach.
... I'm really starting to believe that we're watching Nick Saban's last year. Does he really want to break in a new quarterback? Does he really want to coach in the NIL world?
... If Georgia played Oregon this weekend, would things really be much different than the first match-up early in the season?
... I can't wait for USC/UCLA in two weeks.
... When will Drake Maye play someone worth a damn?
... Kansas is bowl eligible. Give Kansas head coach Lance Leipold all the coaching awards.
... Sam Ehlinger was sacked nine times on Sunday and finished with a 45.6 rating against the Patriots. Woof.
... All Cameron Dicker does is kick game-winning field goals.
... I can't believe the Bills lost to the Jets. I can't believe Zach Wilson beat Josh Allen.
... Tyreek Hill is a Hall of Fame talent building up his resume. He's the modern-day Bob Hayes.
... Aaron Rodgers was far from the best player on the field on Sunday ... against the Lions.
... Jeremy Pena is some kind of player.
... My man has built hospitals, schools, neighborhoods and given untold amounts of money to families all over his country... and they did him like this.
... The LAFC/Philadelphia game was the best MLS game I've ever seen. I watched more of it than Georgia/Tennessee.
... Gareth Bale hadn't done much all season and hadn't played in a month, but he came on in extra time and did this. He's a man made for the big moment.
No. 9 - The List: Top 10 Musical Talents of the Last 100 Years ...
It's not about simply playing an instrument. It's not about being a singer. Or a performer. It's about the whole package.
I'm sure there won't be any disagreements.
10. Quincy Jones
9. Jimi Hendrix
8. Trent Reznor
7. Brian Wilson
6. Chuck Berry
5. Miles Davis
4. Ray Charles
3. Michael Jackson
2. Paul McCartney
1. Prince
No. 10 - And Finally ...
In the event you've got a few minutes to kill, take a look at UT Hoops' news five-star commitment looks like on the floor.
He's velvety smooth.
