Willie Earls Longhorn Blog

Observations on a Ending and a Beginning

I came to realize just a few hours before the TCU game that, right up until the end, Charlie Strong still had the support – by my WAG – of about 30 to 40 percent of the Longhorn fan base and these fans were passionate about their support.  At my group’s tailgate before the game, I found myself the aggressor in an argument with a friend about whether Strong should be fired.  It felt like an argument about politics.  I have steadfastly avoided arguments about politics for at least the past 20 years, and I will continue to avoid them as long as I possess control of my faculties.  The good news is, I de-escalated my aggression before any serious damage to the friendship had been done. I’m guessing my friend and I weren’t the only ones having this argument throughout the fan base. I don’t know what to make of it, but I think it’s fascinating that an argument about whether a football coach should be fired could be akin to an argument about partisan politics.

Black Helicopters

There were some, ahem, interesting theories going around last Thursday night and Friday about why Texas wouldn’t hire Tom Herman.  I think my favorite was the one about Texas Governor Greg Abbott vetoing the hire so the University of Houston constituency wouldn’t be angry with him about their coach being poached by UT. It makes me smile just to write that.

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I don’t know whether Tom Herman will be any more successful than Charlie Strong was, but I like listening to him talk. I do have to chuckle when I hear him quoted as saying how much harder the Texas players will have to work and how much tougher they’ll have to be to play for him.  Doesn’t every new coach say this?

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I read on one of the blog sites that Shane Buechele isn’t a good enough runner to be the quarterback in Tom Herman’s offense.  As L.M. Boyd used to write, “Interesting, if true.”

I also read that contrary to conventional wisdom, Major Applewhite would be Herman’s offense coordinator at Texas.  Really interesting, if true.

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Tom Herman will have a tough early test when the Longhorn take on USC in Los Angeles on September 16. USC will likely be ranked number 2, 3, or 4 in the 2017 preseason rankings.

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I’ll bet the house on Alabama beating Florida in the SEC championship securing a playoff spot. I think there’s about a 50 percent chance that either Washington loses to Colorado in the Pac 12 championship game or Clemson loses to Virginia Tech in the ACC championship game. If one or both of those teams lose, it will be fun to watch which teams are selected to join Alabama and Ohio State in the college football playoff.

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I’ll sign off on the Longhorns 2016 season with this. It seems like a lifetime ago when Texas was playing Alabama in the BCS Championship game.  Texas Football’s irrelevance this time of year has become so much a normal way of life that a 7-5 record would be considered a success by some Longhorn players and fans. All the theoretical talent Charlie Strong has left to build on aside, Tom Herman will have to dig Texas out of a huge hole.

TCU Over/Under Results

It seems fitting that our man in Hanoi, Reed Ramlow, won the TCU Over/Under the same week that Fidel Castro assumed room temperature. Reed, D.R. Flower, and David Bergstrom finished tied in regulation with 9 correct answers. Reed emerged victorious  as the only one of the trio to pick both Ohio State and Washington in the tiebreaker.  Reed plays Over/Under without the benefit of  being able to view the Longhorns  games in person or on television. Well done sir.

Hook Em,

W.E.

It’s high-noon and Charlie Strong is still the Longhorns coach.

Thanksgiving Leftovers

So there I was, minding my own business, in the bosom of my family, watching LSU spank the Aggies when my blissful escape was marred by ESPN’s news crawl reporting on LSU’s imminent hire of Tom Herman and its possible effect on Texas’ hiring or not hiring a new coach. The report stated, or speculated, that if Tom Herman wasn’t available, Texas President Greg Fenves would prefer to stick with Charlie Strong. So, according to this report, Fenves thinks that Tom Herman is the only suitable option for replacing Strong. Wow. Could Fenves and whoever is advising him be so feckless as to believe that if Tom Herman isn’t available that their only other option is to retain Charlie Strong? If the report is accurate than we Longhorn faithful are in a peck of trouble because the institution that is kind of important to us is being led by some true incompetents. Let’s hope the report is not 100% accurate.

The Herman – LSU – Fenves situation isn’t the only silliness being reported by various media. There is also a report out there that if Strong rallies his loyalists in the locker room to a convincing win over TCU, then Fenves, the UT Athletic Director Perrin, Fenves, and Chancellor Bill McRaven, will have the fig leaf they need to justify retaining Strong.  In this morning’s Statesman, Kirk Bohls opined on this report. 

        It’s almost inconceivable that those three men in power could be basing their decision about Strong’s body of work on one game – and a game against a below-average TCU team, at that.       

What he said.

Never Again

Who knew that after Texas’ fifth loss of the 2014 season when Charlie Strong said Texas would never lose five games again that he meant they would lose at least six, maybe seven?

Strong Values

Fifty or so Texas players attended Strong’s regularly scheduled Monday press conference this week in a show of support for their embattled coach. Why didn’t they show up about 48 hours prior in Lawerence, Kansas?  Some of the players, on Monday, discussed boycotting the TCU game in another show of support for Strong. Hmmm, is this an example of the values Strong is instilling in these young men?

Interesting Equation

For the sake of discussion, let’s say Texas beats TCU and loses whatever bowl game they go to. That would give Charlie Strong 17 wins in three years. He’s being paid $5.2 million a year. For three years, that breaks down to $917, 647 per win.

More Bohls

Strong is truly a wonderful man who we all like and admire. He’s a very good coach – but it’s not working. Texas isn’t paying him to be a guidance counselor or a father figure. Those traits are terrific, but that and winning shouldn’t be mutually exclusive.

Amen.

TCU

Texas is favored to beat TCU by three points mostly based on the game being played in Austin. I get it. But it’s easier for me to feature TCU coach Gary Patterson coaching the pants off Charlie Strong and leading his team to a 34-24 win.

Hook ‘Em,

W.E.

Over/Under Results

From my perspective, there is some good news regarding the Kansas game. Rick Mosher, one of my very good friends from my days on the 40 acres, notched his first ever Over/Under win Saturday with seven correct answers. Rick edged out David Frink, Tom Yoxall, and Jeff Johnson who came in with six correct. The average score compiled by the smallest Over/Under field of the year was 4.7.  D.R. Flower scored on the Daily Double predicting 247 yards rushing for D’Onta Foreman.

Sunday Morning Quick Reaction

For all the talk about how this team would do anything for Charlie, they clearly were not ready to play football yesterday. Six turnovers, 65 penalty yards, and 3 for 17 on third down conversions against a 1-9 team are not the ear marks of progress for a team supposedly fighting for their coach.  If anyone can offer explanations other than bad coaching for this team’s performance, please write.

Hook ‘Em,

W.E.

I’ll start it off with three questions.

1. Why does Foreman keep fumbling?
2. That was an interception. How can the Big 12 officials be this bad?
3. Do 2,000 fans running on the field after a major college football game qualify as storming the field?

W.E.