I didn't expect this team to beat USC. I didn't think it would be better than Oklahoma State. Or play in the Big 12 title game.
What I thought about this team was three things ...
1. It would beat Maryland.
2. It would lose two of three against USC, Oklahoma and Oklahoma State.
3. It would improve as the season went along and that by the end of the season, it would be playing its best brand of football, which would allow it to win four of its final five games.
Well, I was wrong about No. 1 and No. 2, yet it feels like the thing I was most wrong about is No. 3.
I thought the thing we'd be saying about this team in November is that none of the teams that caught it in September or early October would want a piece of the Longhorns late in the year.
Oops.
The sign of a well-coached team is constant improvement throughout the season, especially with a young team, but the reality of the 2017 season is that this team isn't making the type of progress that would begin to remotely suggest that Texas is peaking at the end of the season.
Weirdly, this team could still end up winning four of its final five games, with two games left to play, which means that as wrong as I've been, I might end up being right about the thing I feel I was most wrong about.
Nothing feels more 2017 than that.
- The sign of a well coached PROGRAM is having depth to survive terribly-bad injury luck. Herman's staff just got here and has to build that depth.
- The sign of a well coached PROGRAM is having a bunch of good, unselfish and coachable football players on both sides of the ball. Herman's staff didn't inherit very much of that. I still see plenty of kids that peaked in high school, or maybe don't really love the game, or don't seem to care that much about being here, and don't really show much of a burning desire to get better.
- The sign of a well coached PROGRAM is having a junior or senior quarterback at the helm, preferably one in an offense he's well suited for - one that he's been developing in for at least 2 or 3 years. This likewise goes for the rest of the offensive players too.
As EXPECTED, the preseason presumptions around here took the illogical view of completely overlooking the true state of the PROGRAM: It was left a mess in many, many areas.
Going forward, new players have to be found at many positions. Depth has to be built. Kickers have to be brought in and developed. The OL should be relying on juniors and seniors and not freshman. When competing against three early round draft picks at QB (Darnold, Mayfield and Rudolf), we should expect to be putting up a junior or senior ourselves. And regarding the QB, expectations of winning big games shouldn't be placed on the backs of true-freshman or even true-sophomore QB's; especially not when it's one that's had two offenses to learn in as many years and has no offensive line protection to speak of, and doesn't have a solid running game to rely on.
As for the "cliche" expectations of "seeing development" in the form of better play as the season goes on, were it a seasoned program, I'd have to agree. However, where we had some depth, some talent and some experience, and where injury allowed, we saw development in spades. Only exception would be the WR's. But, some of them did put in some great moments this season, just didn't do it consistently. And I'm not sure that was ll on them. However, the defense had us in a several games when it was apparent that our offense shouldn't have had us in any of those games. And the offense is where the PROGRAM was in the worst shape. As for special teams, we tried to bring a kicker in to shore things up there. We found a juco all-star, and once he got here he "unlearned" how to kick field goals.
This coaching staff inherited a real mess. I'm going to give them some time to reshape things. I'm going to give them some time to develop their newly recruited players, their way - get the right messaging into their heads. I've already seen a lot of things improved with game management, the defense and most of the special teams outside of place-kicking and the recruiting seems to be taking shape nicely (but could use more OL help). This season we had a very tough schedule and played a lot of senior-level talent in many games. Our expectations were way too high.
Without massive improvement from the OL, and without the finding of a reliable kicker, next year might be pretty tough too. We'll at least have the benefit of facing OU, OSU and TCU without senior quarterbacks. But, I'm not expecting us to challenge for the conference next year: I'm hoping to see things shape up for 2019 to maybe have a run at it. And, we'll have to pray Todd Orland sticks around next year too. Even if Herman were able to find a suitable replacement, I'd really like to see these kids have some damn consistency-of-coaching for a change.
That's all. I say the future has great potential. May have to adjust with an assistant coach or two, but if given time, I think Herman can get it done.
