One of the first thoughts that came to my mind late in the fourth quarter of the USC game was a quote from “The Sportswriter” by Richard Ford, If there’s another thing that sports writing teaches you, it is there are no transcendent themes in life. In all cases things are here and they’re over, and that has to be enough.”

For Texas, players, coaches, and fans alike, with TCU—a far better team than USC—next, if you look at the absolutely electric moment that was the victory over USC in Royal-Memorial Stadium Saturday night in any other way than just a singular event you’re likely to be disappointed.

That being said here’s some really good stuff from Saturday night.

Four and Five Stars Shine

It may be a simplistic analysis but when Caden Sterns blocked that field goal, I thought, by god that’s a five star recruit!

Four Star recruits Brandon Jones and Collin Johnson came up big in the moment, Jones with a touchdown saving tackle at the goal line and Johnson with six catches for 79 yards.

Four Star recruit Joshua Moore made a fine 27-yard touchdown catch in the third quarter.

Five star recruits BJ Foster and Jeffery McCulloch made solid contributions on defense.

Sam Ehlinger, a four star recruit, played his best game as a Longhorn. His running ability is why he’s the starter and he made several key runs including his 4-yard touchdown run in the third quarter.  More importantly, he didn’t turn the ball over.

Coaching

I could actually detect an offensive game plan with the play callers—whoever they were—sticking with the running game even when the Horns were down 14-3 and coming up with a passing attach designed to make the reads simple for Ehlinger that targeted the Horns big receivers, Collin Johnson and Lil Jordan Humphrey.  Speaking of the running game, my offensive line again played solidly.

Todd Orlando and his defensive staff did a good job of making adjustments after USC took that 14-3 lead in the first quarter.

Now, rinse and repeat.

HooK ‘Em,

Willie Earl

Over/Under Results

Mark Adams was part of the five-way tie for first last week and he followed up that performance with  an outright win this week with eight correct answers plus a bonus point for a correct answer on the daily double for a total score of nine.

John Scott, Tom Yoxall, and Mike Frank tied for second with seven correct plus the daily double. Mike Frank was the only contestant prescient enough to predict Texas and USC would score the same number of points in the fourth quarter.