Playing in a bowl game would count as a victory for UT this season.
Sitting at 4-5 after Big 12 tailspin redefines what goals are possible
AUSTIN — There is no universally accepted definition of what an acceptable season should look like for this Texas football team.
Certainly, the demarcation between success and failure has shifted drastically from last decade, when Longhorns new and old embraced the autumn months expecting doubledigit wins and a shot at the game’s ultimate prize. That’s ancient history for most of the school’s 40,000 undergraduate students, most of whom have apparently discovered better ways to spent their Saturdays than at Royal-Memorial Stadium.
Three straight losing seasons and an overall record of 50-47 since 2010 will do that to any program, even one as well-endowed, nationally pervasive and (formerly) mighty as Texas. In that time, UT has claimed two bowl victories (2011 Holiday, 2012 Alamo), same as Rice, SMU and Rutgers. Football powerhouses those schools are not.
Mack Brown won 101 games and lost 16 from 2001-09. That run included seven bowl victories, a national championship and a mushrooming sense of entitlement that consequently may have played a role in the program’s downfall.
Tom Herman vowed to return Texas to that level while guarding against the revival entitled attitudes. The road back has been a tricky one, populated with fleeting triumphs and heartwrenching disappointments.
Up-and-down year
Maryland spoiled the former graduate assistant’s homecoming. Southern Cal quarterback Sam Darnold’s composure and Sam Ehlinger’s relative inexperience accounted for the difference between a season-altering win over the fourthranked Trojans and a deflating double-overtime loss. Last weekend, TCU held UT to 0.3 yards per rush and sacked Shane Buechele seven times.
It now feels like eons ago, but just last month, Herman had this team sitting at 2-0 in Big 12 play and in control of its own fate. Consecutive losses to Oklahoma and Oklahoma State squashed any delusions of making a run to the renewed conference championship game.
A confluence of factors has contributed to UT’s 4-5 record this season. Injuries to key players, especially along the offense line. Instability at quarterback. A bevy of late-game errors that flipped wouldbe upsets into agonizing what-ifs.
And yet, with games remaining against Kansas, West Virginia and Texas Tech, some believe a certain degree of success remains attainable.
Junior linebacker Malik Jefferson wants to play in a bowl. This could be his last chance to do so should he choose to turn pro ahead of the 2018 NFL draft. So six victories and an invitation to something called Zaxby’s Heart of Texas Bowl might cross his threshold for success.
“It’s very important,” said Jefferson, the team’s leading tackler and a Butkus Award semifinalist. “I haven’t made a bowl game in my college career, and it’s important that we get the seniors out to a bowl game. The expectation is a lot different than we expected it to be this year, so very frustrating, but you can’t give up.
“You still have to go play, and it’s very important.”
Depends on perspective
Herman believes any improvement, no matter how minimal, would fit the criteria required for a successful season. That opinion of course won’t be unanimously shared, particularly by deep-pocketed boosters and bombastic alumni who clamored for his high-priced hiring.
Still, a December night spent watching Texas play in the Cactus Bowl or Camping World Bowl would be better than yet another losing record.
“I think anything better than previous years has to be considered somewhat of a success,” Herman said. “It’s called improvement, right? I think for anybody that’s really kind of looked under the hood of this team and this program and what we lost offensively, up front and at the tailback position, but yet, how transformative the product that you see on the field is.
“And just from an energy and physicality standpoint, I think the kids are buying into that, and that you see it every week on a consistent basis.
“You see really, really hard-playing guys that are playing very physical and very intense. That in and of itself is a success, and we’ve got to continue to then translate that success into success on the scoreboard.”
Herman and the Horns have three games left to figure that out, or else this season won’t have been a success by anyone’s definition.