My Homework Assignment
Dear Mr. Dodds,
It was a pleasure meeting with you on Wednesday regarding the newly created position of Associate Athletic Director for Positive Spin. Below please find the writing sample you requested as part of my application for the position.
As Johnny Mercer wrote and Tony Bennett sang so well, the falling leaves drift by my window….and soon I’ll hear old winter’s song, and when that happens wins on the road in the Big 12 are as a precious and hard to come as a vacant porta-potty at a Rolling Stones concert in Central Park. Well the Longhorns came away with one of those precious victories yesterday in Lawrence, Kansas on the strength of a stingy defense and pluck of back up quarterback Case McCoy. Oh sure, you can talk about Kansas’ 1-6 record and how they had lost 16 straight Big 12 games coming in but the records go out the window this time of year in conference rivalries such as Texas-Kansas.
This was a huge win for Mack Brown’s Longhorns and one they can build on coming down the stretch especially knowing that they now have two experienced and clutch performers at quarterback they can count on. In addition, freshman running back Jonathan Grey had his most prolific day as a Longhorn with 106 yards on 18 carries. On the defensive side of the ball, Texas had its best showing in conference play limiting Kansas to 273 total yards and 3 points in the second half.
At 6-2 on the season the Longhorns are in good company with the likes of Texas A&M, Texas Tech, USC, Stanford and Nebraska who are also 6-2. And don’t look now but previously vanquished foes Oklahoma State and Ole Miss are a collective 6-2 since they fell to the Horns.
Next up for the Longhorns is another road test against Texas Tech. Victories are tough to come by in Lubbock as the 2008 Longhorns and Blake Gideon can attest. But if the Longhorns bring their usual road warrior intensity and resolve to the Hub City we’ll be in for a great game. And again as Tony Bennett sang, I love things that are great!
But Seriously Folks
After the last two and a half seasons with all the broken vows to fix this and to fix that how can you trust Mack Brown and his staff to have this team ready to play on any given Saturday? Unless this season turns out much differently than most of us expect it to, it’s going to be hard to stay excited about Texas Football without some serious changes in the off-season. I don’t know what those changes should be. Right now it’s hard to imagine Texas Football without Mack Brown. It’s equally as hard to imagine Texas Football going on much longer the way it’s going now.
Over/Under Results
It was a grueling over/under contest this week and at the finish blood and body parts were strewn all over the field as the average number of correct answers was 3.66. Homer Mark and a contestant known only as Paul tied in regulation scoring high above the average with 6 correct answers. Homer Mark survived the tiebreaker as Paul picked Texas Tech and Oklahoma as winners. Homer correctly predicted that Kansas State would beat the Red Raiders and wins for the first time in two seasons.
HooK eM,
W.E.
P.S. Not one to blow my own horn, spike the football and dance I reserved bragging about my Notre Dame pick for this rare post script. I told you Notre Dame would win.
