USA TODAY International Edition
Longhorns believing hype around team
7-6 in ’17, bowl win fueling excitement
AUSTIN, Texas – Let’s start here:
Texas is not back.
“We haven’t done anything yet,” says Breckyn Hager, the Longhorns’ effervescent senior defensive lineman. “So you don’t say nothing about that yet.”
Of course, people will. They do. Predicting the traditional power’s return to relevance has become an annual offseason occurrence, right up until and sometimes even after kickoff. How could Texas not be good, heading toward great? How long could the Longhorns possibly continue to wallow in mediocrity?
Surely solid coaching and fertile recruiting and abundant resources and, yeah, sheer hunger will finally combine to produce a Big 12 contender. But what’s that? Let’s hear from secondyear coach Tom Herman:
“We’re a 7-6 team until we prove otherwise.”
But last season’s record is part of the reason for optimism and for the undoubted sense of momentum around the program — and yeah, probably even the preseason rankings (No. 21 in the preseason Amway Coaches Poll, No. 23 in the Associated Press Poll). The Longhorns had to beat Missouri in the Texas Bowl last December to avoid a fourth consecutive losing season. But when they did? Cue the hype, building through the offseason.
Let’s take another look at what Hager says and focus on the last word of his sentences: “yet.” Dive a little deeper, and it’s clear he’s tracking with Herman, who says, “I think we’re close.”
But here, let’s parse Herman, too. The Longhorns understand while some are all too ready to pronounce them ready to contend again on the national scene, others have decided it’s smarter to wait and see, to make a 7-6 team prove otherwise.
We’ve been fooled before. And by we, that is all of us, including the Longhorns themselves.
Two years ago, Texas nipped Notre Dame in double overtime in a thrilling season opener played under the lights in front of a roaring home crowd of more than 100,000.
Tyrone Swoopes scored the winning touchdown, prompting ESPN broadcaster Joe Tessitore to proclaim: “Texas is back, folks!” Texas Gov. Greg Abbott hugged Longhorns coach Charlie Strong as he came off the field.
“It feels like a championship,” Abbott said.
In the days after that victory, Hager says the Longhorns soaked it in.
Hager recalls walking around campus, hanging out by the iconic UT Tower in full logo swag, just “bossing around.”
“I didn’t necessarily go to class, you know,” he says, laughing. “I was just out there out there thinking we just won the national championship.”
Hager pauses, then clarifies: “I’m in class all the time. I’ve never missed a class. I was tardy. Taking it all in. We’d beat Notre Dame, we’re ranked, and I’m like, ‘Yes! I’m part of this. Texas is back. We’re where we’re supposed to be.’ ”
As it turned out, Notre Dame wasn’t all that good. Texas wasn’t good, either. A couple of months later, after the Horns went 5-7, marking three consecutive losing seasons for the first time in 80 years, Strong was out of a job. Herman was hired to rebuild.
So yeah. They understand your skepticism.
“I don’t blame you or anyone who has those feelings, at all,” junior wide receiver Collin Johnson says. “I don’t expect anyone to believe in us besides the people in this building.”
But get this: They think they’re about to make us believers, too.
Herman says the program is far ahead of where it was a year ago — when, as long as we’re on the subject of optimism, the Longhorns got popped in the season opener, at home, by Maryland.
Players say they’ve bought into Herman’s philosophy; the coach calls it going from compliant to committed.
Almost as important is the potential end of this trivia nugget, which is illustrative of Texas’ biggest continuing question: Since Colt McCoy’s departure after the 2009 season, a Texas quarterback has not started consecutive games against Oklahoma, the Longhorns’ chief rival. If he can stay healthy, Sam Ehlinger could end the streak. More important, Herman believes Ehlinger could break the string of inconsistency at the position. There have been myriad other contributing issues — mediocre offensive lines, as one example — but subpar quarterbacking has been a confounding and key component in the program’s struggles.
Herman says Ehlinger, a 6-3, 235pound sophomore, is “light-years” ahead of 2017, when he was initially forced into action after an injury to starter Shane Buechele. Ehlinger was — stop if you’ve heard this before — inconsistent, but he was also a true freshman. After injuries along the offensive line, he was sometimes running for his life.
“He’s operating the offense, rather than just running plays,” Herman says.
It’s more than quarterback, of course. The offensive line has to be better. The run game must improve.
Texas’ defense, which was its strength in 2017, must absorb some key losses, including Big 12 co-defensive player of the year Malik Jefferson, Big 12 defensive lineman of the year Poona Ford and Thorpe Award finalist DeShon Elliott.
Those are the kinds of questions faced by most teams.
But Texas isn’t most teams. It’s why although Texas was picked to finish fourth in the Big 12’s annual preseason media poll, the Longhorns look at their returning nucleus and see other teams in transition and get the sense that maybe, finally, this could be the year.
“The talent’s there. The depth’s there. Everything is there,” Hager says. “The Big 12 is down. The teams we are playing are down. … It’s now Texas who’s the experienced team. We’ve worked hard enough to make something awesome happen.”
Texas is back?
“Leave that to me,” he says. “When the time comes, I’ll bring that quote back myself. I’ll say it. As of now, we haven’t proved anything yet.
“We’re not creating the hype, but we’re believing it.”