The problem with having a bye week in the middle of one of the strangest seasons I've covered in the 26 seasons I've been covering the Texas football program is that it gives you a lot of time to ponder an assortment of random things.
After spending far too much time trying to figure out how to creatively spin out the pile of thoughts in my head into a seamless piece of creative writing beauty, I've given up.
You're not getting creative. Just a pile of thoughts in this first section.
A word vomit of sorts.
Here goes ...
* As someone that was ridiculed as a misguided worrywart for predicting a 7-3 record for the Longhorns before the season started, I'm slightly amused at the situation the program is currently in with a 5-2 record and an easier-than-it-is-hard pathway to a Big 12 Championship game. Sight unseen, I feel like if I had offered the Texas fan base an 8-2 regular season and a spot in the Big 12 Championship game before the season started, an overwhelming majority of fans would have snapped my hand off in a race to accept it.
After all, we're talking about a team that was 7-5 a season ago, had a historically complicated off-season and was entering a season of unknown with the threat of COVID hanging over the team each week. An 8-2 record wouldn't be perfect, but it would do the trick of accomplishing the greater goal of giving the team a chance at a Big 12 Championship. Other than killing misguided notions of competing for a spot in the playoff, 8-2 would represent serious improvement in the standings from a year ago and it does the same thing that a 10-0 and 9-1 record would accomplish, which is set up a 60-minute standoff for the school's first conference championship since 2009. Hell yes, most of you would have taken that deal. Only the fanatical part of being a fan would lead someone to pass up shooting from the lay-up line in the name of chasing an extra layer of glory when you haven't tasted a smidge of any kind of true glory in 11 years.
That's like a single guy that hasn't been on a date in 11 years telling an active friend in the dating market that he's going out on too many dates and should instead be looking for someone who is perfect.
Of course, that getting to the conference title game alone doesn't make for a successful season around here as much as it represents steps of improvement that shouldn't exist at this stage of Tom Herman's tenure in Austin, but there's no getting around the fact that this team is headed towards hitting a reasonable set of expectations through the first 10 games of the season. It's not there yet. A 7-3 record feels most likely, but the Longhorns will likely be favored in each of its final three games.
* Timing is everything. It's very possible that we'll get to a final record that should fit into the category of acceptable based on the fact that it gets the team into the Big 12 Championship game for only the second time since the Big 12 Championship game enjoyed a rebirth, but the timing of that performance in Lubbock, coupled with the following losses to TCU and Oklahoma created a momentum of desperately desired change that doesn't slow down because a string of wins inconveniences it. If we get to a point where the Longhorns are 8-2, the losses to Oklahoma and TCU wouldn't seemingly justify a dismissal by itself, but that they happened together during a time of historically explosive off-field minefields has made for a fascinating set of circumstances.
* The recruiting in 2021 is an incredible disappointment and a borderline disaster when you consider what the Longhorns haven't been able to accomplish with the in-state plate of prospects that was available to the staff, but the truth of the matter is that I don't have a great feel for what would happen in the 2022 class should the Longhorns emerge from this season as Big 12 champions. While things have been stuck in the mud for the 2021 class for a while, there are signs that a number of top 2022 in-state prospects have the Longhorns at the top or near the top of their leaderboards. It would be naive to believe that winning a Big 12 title wouldn't have a positive bounce for recruiting when you remember what the win in the Sugar Bowl a few years ago achieved. Perhaps the million dollar question in this scenario is what would happen to 2022 and 2023 recruiting if things went sideways on the field, similarly to what happened in 2019, which the program hasn't yet recovered from?
* It's hard not to wonder how different the state of Herman's tenure might look if he had looked to go with a bunch of recruiting rain-makers when he turned over his staff instead of hiring a bunch of guys with reps as developers of talent, but not necessarily dominant in recruiting. The feeling at the time was that if Texas won on the field, recruiting would take care of itself. That was a fairly naive position for Herman to take when he hired his staff because it speaks of an overestimation of Herman's juice with top prospects. Herman is nothing like Mack Brown as a recruiter, which means that four years into his tenure, he's not a guy that can turn water into wine with regards to recruiting momentum.
* There's still a part of me that will believe Texas hires a guy like Urban Meyer when I see it, with most of my doubt centered around the notion that Texas will be willing to break the bank in a potential bidding war with Meyer. The word I got recently was that a potential deal with Meyer would likely be heavy in incentives and bonuses if it ever came to fruition but the working part of my brain wonders how someone with all the leverage would be won over with a contract built on incentives in order for it to compete at the highest levels nationally in terms of total take-home.
* The elephant in the room with Herman in 2020 is that the entire season is being seen through the prism of the anger created from The Eyes of Texas situation. It's hard not to wonder how this season would feel if the leadership in athletics that emerged in October hadn't needed to arrive only after a public disaster.
* If there's one thing that really bothers me about what we've seen in the last month or so, it's the attack on Herman's character with attempted smears related to off-field activity. I think it's complete trash. If you want to get rid of the guy because his coaching isn't good enough, fine, go for it. This other stuff? Trash. Don't let your thirst for change related to football make you cross the line of decency out of desperation. Be better than that.
* South Carolina setting 13 million on fire to rid itself of Will Muschamp (see section. 10) is an interesting development because it creates another precedent for Texas to lean on if it seeks to do the same later in the season. UT is a place that loves to have others do the things it wants to do first, just so that it can have some optics cover. It's an underrated little event for the "change" crowd.
No. 2 - The COVID cloud ...
It was kind of hard to watch college football this weekend and not notice that half the schedule was wiped out because of COVID.
READ THE REST OF KETCH'S 10 THOUGHTS FROM THE WEEKEND HERE (PREMIUM SUBSCRIBERS)
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