What do the Willie Earl Over/Under players have in common with the Texas Football Longhorns? They both blew up the scoreboard Saturday. While Texas was scoring 55, the Over/Under players were averaging a stunning 7.4 correct answers and the players who got 7 correct tied for ninth place in a 16-player field! The over/under questions were as easy to solve as was the Kansas defense.
Jeff Otto and Dan Yoxall tied for first place with 9 correct answers so once again the winner was decided by the tiebreaker. Here, Jeff stumbled with both his picks, Oklahoma State and West Virginia being losers. Jeff always bets on his home state school, West Virginia. He once placed a $10 bet in the preseason on the Mountaineers to win the national championship. I think the odds were something like 500-1. Dan went one for two with Oklahoma State and Kansas State so, for the second time in three games Dan Yoxall wins! Dan takes home $35 for the effort.
Mike Frank, Dan Adams, Mitch Frink, Greg Swan, Andy Garrod, and Steve Holstead tied for third with 8 correct answers. There’s something all but one of these players have in common. What is it? It’s something more unique than being old.
As I mentioned above, there were 16 players this week which was the second fewest of the season. I’m sure this was due to the site being down Friday night and most of Saturday morning. I think we have our issues thoroughly resolved now.
Every player predicted Texas would lead at halftime and that Texas would have the game’s leading rusher. Only three players picked Kansas to average more yards per play than Texas. The question that the most players missed was which team would score more points in the 4th quarter with 8 players going with Kansas.
Earlier this season, the week after Texas’ narrow loss to #1 Alabama, Texas found itself tied 17-17 at the half with UTSA. Uh oh. Were the Horns hungover from their disappointing loss to Alabama? Maybe briefly before they outscored UTSA 24-3 in the second half to win comfortably 41-20. This ushered in The Texas Football Era of Good Feelings. It was a short-lived era as Texas blew a 14-point second half lead and lost in Lubbock to Texas Tech. But then Texas went on a three-game winning streak that included a 49-0 blowout of Oklahoma and a 4th quarter comeback win over Iowa State. Okay then. The loss in Lubbock was just a blip on the radar. Texas rose to #20 in the rankings with a 5-2 record. Texas had the wind to their back and the sky was the limit for their uber-talented team. Steve Sarkisian was well on his way to his first four game winning streak at Texas, then his team blew another 14-point lead against Oklahoma State.
The Oklahoma State loss put Steve Sarkisian’s record at Texas to 10-10 and raised disturbing questions about his leadership. If Sarkisian was such a brilliant offensive mind and play caller why did his team only score three points in the second half of losses to Texas Tech and Oklahoma State? Why didn’t he replace Quinn Ewers in the second half of the Oklahoma State game when he was 8 for 25 passing. Ewers finished the game 19 for 49. Are his play calling duties detracting from his ability to manage and lead the entire team? Crouching on the sideline staring at a laminated play sheet doesn’t look like leadership to me. The win over Kansas State, when Texas only scored three points in the second half and allowed Kansas State to close to with 7 points after trailing by 21, did little to dispel the questions.
Last Saturday Sarkisian and Texas found a new way to lose. They never led TCU and while the defense was playing their best game of the decade, the offense totaled only 199 yards and failed to score a touchdown. Once again Sarkisian declined to replace a struggling Quin Ewers with Hudson Card during the second half. Ewers finished the game 17 for 39 passing. Remember after the Oklahoma State game when I quoted Paul Wadlington. “Losing finds a way.”
Texas still has a chance to post an 8-4 record for the regular season which is what many fans said they would be satisfied with at the start of the season. I don’t get that mindset; more on that in a minute. Texas won’t get to 8-4 without a surge in leadership from the head coach. In my opinion the reason Texas is 6-4 at this point instead of 8-2 or 9-1 is Steve Sarkisian’s failure to lead his team during critical stretches in games they’ve lost. As the offensive coordinator he has not figured out how to score points in the second half. He continues to call deep shot after deep shot to Xavier Worthy without success. I heard a statistic on the radio this week that Texas is 9 for 38 on passes thrown more than 25 yards in the air this season. That’s not a winning formula. Part of leadership is the willingness to change course when the present course isn’t working.
I would start by replacing Quinn Ewers with Hudson Card to start the Kansas game. At the very least it would show that Sarkisian places more value on winning games now than protecting Ewers’ psyche. At best Card is probably the better quarterback right now.
Card has completed 69% of his passes, Ewers is at 55%. Card’s average yards per attempt is 8.6, Ewers’ is 7.1. In 107 pass attempts Card has one interception. In 212 attempts Ewers has six interceptions. I could go on. Suffice it to say by any statistical measure Card has been better than Ewers. And if you take into account only Ewers’ last four games the contrast is even starker. Card also adds a running dimension to the offense. Ewers doesn’t. In the four games that Card has had extensive playing time he has long runs in each of 17, 22, 32, and 20 yards. In this era of college and pro football an offense without a mobile quarterback is at a disadvantage.
Do I think there is a snowballs chance in hell that Card starts against Kansas? No. But if Ewers struggles against Kansas’ 117th ranked pass defense in the country and the game is on the line will Steve Sarkisian do something or just crouch there?
8-4
If we were handing out grades at the end of the regular season and Texas finished 8-4 I would give Texas a C. Is Texas paying Steve Sarkisian $5.4 million to go 8-4? I heard someone say that 8-4 would be a three-game improvement over last year’s 5-7 and should be considered a big step forward. So, 5-7 is our baseline? Come on.
Aren’t you tired of hearing about the “process?” If you want to talk process how about Sonny Dykes’ process going from 5-7 to 10-0. Or Josh Heupel’s at Tennessee improving from 7-6 his first year to 9-1 at Tennessee. Here’s another. In his first year at LSU Brian Kelly took over a 6-7 team and won the SEC West. They’re 8-2 overall so far. One more. Lincoln Riley inherited a 4-8 USC team and they’re now 9-1. TCU, Tennessee, LSU, and USC now sit at 4,5,6, and 7 in the playoff standings.
Let’s stop making excuses for Texas.
Song of the Week
I’m afraid I’m one of those who wants “to go home again” so this song makes me wistful. The song works. What a great song.
I know I’m being redundant, but we had yet another barnburner this week in Over/Under. Wes Peoples and Steve Holstead were nearly perfect, and they tied for first place with 9 correct answers. Steve’s only wrong answer was predicting a non-quarterback would throw a pass. Wes’s only stumble was picking Ewers over Duggan for the most touchdown passes. In the tiebreaker both Steve and Wes picked Kansas State to cover versus Baylor which was correct and the Cowboys to cover versus the Packers which was a loser. So once again the contest came all the way down to the score prediction of the TCU Texas game. Both players predicted Texas would win. Steve had it 27-20 in Texas’ favor while Wes had Texas 28-24. Since Texas lost by 7, Wes prevails with his four-point spread in Texas’ favor to Steve’s 7-point spread. Congratulations to Wes! I seem to recall that Wes won one of these last year or the year before.
Interestingly enough, Wes and Steve weren’t money ball players. So, who won the money? That would be Eric Vogl who finished alone in third place with 8 correct answers. Mr. Vogl plays Over/Under about as often as Tiger Woods plays a regular PGA tour event. Eleven players opted in for money ball this week, so Eric takes home $55.
Mark Stephan, Dan Adams, Wade Wallace, Helen Frink, and Zach Moorhead tied for fourth with 7 correct.
We had 22 players again this week, another healthy turnout just one short of the season high of 23. Only 6 players correctly went under on17.5 points for Texas in the first half. In what turned out to be a gimme question, only three players went with no for the team with the most time of possession would win the game. When I formulated that question, I was thinking Texas might win the game throwing it around 35-40 times while having less than 30 minutes of possession. Texas thew it 39 times and had only 22:38 in time of possession.
Texas’ win over a ranked Kansas State team was their first road win of the season and only their second road win under Steve Sarkisian. The win put the Longhorns back into the College Football Playoff rankings and the AP poll rankings at #18. Further, the college football computer geeks like Texas. They’re #6 in the ESPN Power Index and the ESPN SP+ rankings. More importantly, the win over Kansas State coupled with Oklahoma State’s loss to Kansas means Texas will get into the Big 12 Championship if they win their remaining three games in the regular season.
With the win over Kansas State has Texas put their road woes behind them? Are they going to perform going forward like the talent laden team they are should perform? Or is Texas still the under achieving team they have been? In their two conference road losses to Texas Tech and Oklahoma State, and in their road win against Kansas State they scored only three points in the second half. They were lucky at home to beat Iowa State, a 4-5 team that is in 9th place in the Big 12. Nine games into the season I don’t know who Texas is.
TCU vs Texas
Big game experience
Although TCU rolls into Austin sporting a #4 College Football Playoff Texas is currently a 7-point favorite. Generally, in college football the home field is worth three points so the oddsmakers think Texas is the better team. Like I said, the football computer geeks like Texas.
TCU has no recent experience in games of this magnitude. Texas played #1 Alabama a couple of months ago, but the expectations were low. Remember, most Texas fans and pro-Texas media were just hoping Texas could keep the game within two scores. Texas was playing with house money. So, I don’t think either team has an edge in big game experience.
Quarterback
If Quinn Ewers plays up to his potential I don’t think either team has an edge in the quarterback matchup. If Sarkisian continues to call numerous deep shot attempts to Xavier Worthy and Ewers is having an off day I think TCU with Max Dugan will have the decided edge. Duggan can hurt you running or passing. Texas will have a tough time containing him. He leads the Big 12 in total passing yards averaging 267 yards per game and touchdown passes with 24. He’s completed 66% of his throws. Texas struggles in pass defense even against average passers. Duggan has run for 282 yards averaging 3.7 yards per carry which seems rather modest, but sacks are factored into quarterback rushing stats skewing yards per carry and total yards lower.
Coaching
I don’t see an edge for either team in terms of coaching. Dykes and Sarkisian have faced each other once. In 2014 Sarkisian’s USC beat Dykes’ California team 38-30.
Sonny Dykes has won 56% of his games as head coach of Louisiana Tech, California, and SMU. He was 25-10 at SMU and that success got him the job at TCU. This will be the biggest game of his head coaching career.
Ironically, Steve Sarkisian has also won 56% of his games as a head coach with stops at Washington, USC, and Texas. His best year was in 2014 at USC when he went 9-4. Reviewing the recap of that season without much context it looks like if USC had beaten UCLA in their last conference game, they would have been in the Pac 12 Championship game. They lost to #11 UCLA 38-20. Anyway, that’s ancient history. This will be the biggest game of his head coaching career. Win and he would have a manageable task of winning a road game versus Kansas, and a home game versus Baylor to get in the Big 12 Championship which would be a successful season. Lose and it’s wait until next year. Again.
Making plays
Before the Alabama game I wrote that Texas players needed to make plays when they had opportunities. In that game, Xavier Worthy dropped a very catchable ball in the end zone. D’Shawn Jamison dropped an interception that hit him between the numbers that would have ended an Alabama scoring drive. And Ryan Watts missed a sack that would have been a game a game clincher on Alabama’s winning drive for a field goal. Texas can’t afford to miss those kinds of opportunities on Saturday.
Tale of two halves
By now we’re familiar with Texas’ second half struggles in their losses to Texas Tech and Oklahoma State. Last week in their win at Kansas State they only scored three points. What happens if Texas doesn’t have a good first half against TCU?
Classic matchup
This game isn’t a championship game. It’s not #1 versus #2 such as Nebraska vs Oklahoma in 1971 or USC vs Texas in the 2005 title game. But it is a classic Big 12 matchup of the 2010s. Those involve Texas with predominantly four-star recruits with a few five stars sprinkled in versus non blueblood programs like Iowa State, Oklahoma State, or TCU. Those programs’ rosters consist of mostly three-star recruits with a four-star here and there. In the recruiting classes from 2019 through 2022 Texas’ average national ranking was 8. TCU’s was 38.
In 2020 after Iowa State beat Texas, Iowa State’s Breece Hall took to Twitter with “It’s five-star culture vs. five-star players.” You know TCU will be coming into this game with five-star culture vs. five-star players chip on their collective shoulders.
Final
As Chris Schenkel said during the fourth quarter of the 1969 Texas, Arkansas game, “tension.”
We might get some Saturday night.
Song of the Week
When this song came out in 1977 and top 40 radio was still big in my life, it was played so often that I developed something close to a dislike for this song. In more recent years I have come to really appreciate it as one of the Eagles best.
On a day when the average score was 4.55, four players shined. Zach Moorhead and Dan Yoxall tied for first place with 8 correct answers. Zach and Dan both picked a winner, Georgia and a loser, Clemson against the line. So, it came down to their score predictions to determine the winner. Zach had Texas losing 35-17. Dan predicted a Texas road victory 35-31 so Dan wins this week. I’m not sure, but I think it’s Dan’s first win ever. Dan takes home $40 for the effort. Congratulations Dan!
D.R. Flower and Helen Frink tied for third place with 7 correct answers which blew away the field’s average of 4.55.
Interestingly enough, no player scored a 6.
Zach Moorehead and D.R. Flower were the only two plyers who predicted Texas would score less than 10.5 points in the second half.
We had another large field with 22 players.
Study up your stat sheets this week for the biggest game in Austin for the Longhorns in a while.
