The Texas Longhorns are just not that good this year. Sure, they managed to get up and play a nearly perfect game against Nebraska, but they also have a penchant for making bad teams look good.
Let’s look at the rest of the completed schedule of the two bad teams that beat us at home.
UCLA
– Lost 22-31 at Kansas State
– Lost 0-35 to Stanford
– Beat Houston 31-13
– Beat Washington State 42-28
– Lost 7-35 to Cal
– Lost 13-60 to Oregon
Iowa State
– Beat Northern Illinois 27-10
– Lost 7-35 at Iowa
– Lost 20-27 at Kansas State
– Beat Northern Iowa 27-0
– Beat Texas Tech 52-38
– Lost 27-68 to Utah
– Lost 0-52 to Oklahoma
The best team UCLA has beat is Houston. And other than Texas Tech, Iowa State has only beaten directional schools.
On offense, UCLA is ranked 102nd in the Football Bowl Subdivision, while Iowa State is 103rd. On defense, UCLA is 85th and Iowa State is 116th.
These are bad, bad teams. Yet they came into DKR-TMS and handled Texas. Yesterday’s Iowa State was worse than the final score.
So, Mack Brown was angry during the post game presser. That doesn’t matter, unless he’s willing to make needed changes.
And, the first thing that needs to happen is that offensive coordinator Greg Davis be fired. His laziness and lack of creativity have been allowed to fester at Texas for about a decade too long.
I remain a big fan of Will Muschamp, but much of the blame for yesterday’s loss certainly falls on him. Perhaps his defense is simply tired of trying to make up for the offense’s incompetence, but they are simply not as good as advertised.
And neither, it seems, is Garrett Gilbert. Granted, he has the worst receiver corps I can remember ever seeing at Texas, but both his decision making and his accuracy are horrible.
More and more people are comparing Gilbert to Chris Simms. I don’t think that’s fair. Simms had moments of greatness. Halfway through his second season at Texas, we haven’t seen any greatness from Gilbert.
I don’t know if he’s been ruined by bad coaching or if we just missed on assessing him as a recruit, but if he doesn’t get better, we’re in a world of hurt. Neither Case McCoy nor Connor Wood look like the solution, and David Ash is a long way away.
In the end, this all rolls up to Mack Brown.
So, what happens for the rest of the season?
Unfortunately, there are no guaranteed wins left. Iowa State was supposed to be that, but we know what happened there.
Flip a coin against Baylor. They’re clearly a better team than we are this year, but hopefully we’ll be up for the game.
Kansas State could be ugly. They’re a mediocre team, but that’s what we aspire to be, and they’ve got our number.
Oklahoma State should beat us a well, but I think we squeak out a win.
Florida Atlantic should be an easy win, but we’re capable of losing. Did I really just type that?
And then we get to the Aggie game. I can’t remember the last time neither team had anything to play for but pride. I think the home team wins this one. Fortunately, that’s us this year.
Seven or eight wins, it seems. We should be bowl eligible, but it’ll be a bad one. Shreveport might not even want us.
Obviously, we need to see major changes in the coaching staff during the off season. I suspect McWhorter will be made a sacrificial lamb, but that’s probably it.
No real changes will be made unless/until ticket sales suffer.
Damn…