In this order

1) The defensive line must dominate – If our defensive line can exert pressure on the opposing QB it’ll help protect a young secondary as they gain experience. If Roy Miller can take up 2 blockers, we know Orakpo and Houston will create havoc, and give Kindle and Muck the chance to come through unblocked, stop plays in the backfield and create turnovers. As young as we are on offense, IMO we’re going to live an die on defense week to week.

1a) The offensive line must be good- Even at my most optimistic, I see less chance of the O-line being able to control the flow of the game for 12 games compared to the d-line. However, if they can manage to hold their own then I think we’ll be okay. Colt is probably not as good as his freshman season, but probably not as average as his sophomore campaign. If the O-Line can create passing lanes (something of a problem last season), he’s accurate enough to do damage on intermediate routes. The fact we don’t have a running back who is a proven 12 game workhorse puts more pressure on the line to create holes and sustain them.

2) Consistent playmakers must emerge – There’s a lot of raw physical talent on both sides of the ball, capable of game changing plays. However, Kindle, Chiles et al haven’t shown the consistency necessary to alter opponents game plans. If two guys step up on both sides of the ball, or guys like Quan/Shipley make a leap from fairly good to great, then I think we’ll be in fine shape.

2) At least once during the season, Major will have to stage a coup and usurp Greg Davis, by any means necessary (I’m thinking horse tranquilizers). – I firmly believe that our defense can be excellent, but at least once during the season we’re going to need to generate points and lots of them. It could be OU, it could be Missouri, but someone will come out swinging before Muschamp has a chance to adjust at halftime (one of his famous strengths). The fact we don’t yet have an offensive weapon capable of taking over and scoring multiple touchdowns by himself, a Roy/Limas/JC type, means that creativity will have to substitute for a blunt instrument. I don’t have confidence in Greg Davis to provide the necessary combination of brains and cajones.

3) Muschamp must be as good as advertised – Stating the obvious. I don’t have a doubt on that account, but if we’re talking 12-0 it needs to be stated.

4) Mack can’t fall into old habits – We’ve returned to a team where every job is up for grabs, and being a senior doesn’t entitle you to a spot in the line up. We have to stay that way.

5) Colt – Must play within himself. As impressive as I find his poor man’s Staubach routine, I hope that someone will have him watch a few hundred hours of Danny Wuerffel/Josh Heupel game film. If he gets rid of the ball quickly, becomes acquainted with his check down options, and realizes how to play to his strengths and limitations, he’ll be a QB who could take us to an MNC.

6) RB’s – It’s rare that Texas has had two back who each gain over 700 yards. I don’t see anyone running for 1600 by themselves, so this is going to have to be an exception year. Vondrell will have step way up, though I don’t doubt that he can, and Fozzy will have to live up to the hype.

7) We’ll need a few breaks- Every team needs a few to get to go undefeated, 2008 Texas won’t be an exception. But with a few lucky bounce on a fumble here, a Fulmer Cup trophy there, and the hiring of Mike Sherman, I think the breaks could go our way.

despite the fact I hold no degree’s from A&M. Impressive, even if I do say so myself.

FAU, @UTEP, Rice, Baylor – Thanks for playing, but Texas doesn’t lose to y’all. FAU is the best of them, but I’ll eat my hat if the Longhorns lose to a Sun Belt team at home.

Arkansas – UT’s defensive question mark is two freshman safeties, right? Well, Casey Dick has yet to play in a passing offense and the leading receiver coming back is a tight end with 14 catches. Done and done.

@Colorado – Comes after a bye week for Texas, and Colorado isn’t quite there yet.

Oklahoma – DCs will now have had an entire offseason to break down Sam Bradford, leading to a sophomore slump. Muschamp will have something special for this one.

Missouri – Take a look at what Florida’s offense did against Auburn the past two years. Muschamp knows how to stop the spread.

Oklahoma State – Last won in Austin in 1944. Let’s just move on.

@Texas Tech – After Ruffin McNeil took over the Tech defense, it held every team to 4 points above their season scoring average or less except one – the Longhorns.

@Kansas – Muschamp eats the spread offense for dinner.

Texas A&M – It’s in Austin, on a Friday after a bye week, and Mike Sherman going to attempt to run the West Coast offense. That’s a formula for a Texas win.

There you go, 12-0. If you can believe it, you can achieve it. And yeah, Muschamp held Florida to 17 points last year, but gave up 42 to Georgia. As long as no one in the Big 12 kidnaps Knowshon Moreno, you’re going to be fine.

... Then we should all go to Vegas, baby, because we’d be ROLLIN’! [/Vitale]

Seriously, there are so many things that have to happen:

Texas must…

1) Be lucky – Can’t have Rak hurt all year, can’t have Miller go down. I would hire an extra referee just to protect our D-line in Dallas from any “Oh shit, we’re losing! Cheat!” thoughts that cross Stoops’ mind. We can’t have the whole offensive line ride off on the cart this season, either.

2) Solve the running game, before – Greg Davis’ passing attack will not work against almost anyone (remember Arkansas State? TCU? UCF (kinda)? KSU?) without the threat of a major running game. The problem is, it usually takes until we lose to OU for him to buckle his belt and do something about it. V. McGee cannot play the game he played against Texas Tech if our offense is going to be able to win any games against a team with the guns to put up 20 on us. We will not be converting every 3rd and 8 after two one-yard grinds on 1st and 2nd down. This is where all my chips are riding.

3.) Receivers need to step up – Whether Shipley is finally going to be good this year, after (what?) 3 years of telling us that he’s so fast and awesome, etc, etc. Or whether Irby plays D. Thomas Jr., or whether a light goes on in one of our new guys’ heads, we need someone to get deep and fight for the ball, or we need to have like the best possession receivers evah!

4) Secondary has to go to school – The OOC is looking more and more like a lecture series for our safeties. If they bring their notebooks and stay awake, Muschamp and Akina ought to have them serviceable by OU. Another key here is that Mack continues his accountability NOS junk. Nothing will make you improve faster than being the reason Roy Miller has to do an up-down every time you blow an assignment.

5) Mack has to be tough Mack, all year – I can almost guarantee you, just by past performance standards (read my Eyes of Texas article), that Mack will lose at least one to OU, Missouri, or possibly Tech, and the average has him winning 0 or 1 of those. That is, the Mack we’ve had since 1998. If he’s really turned a corner, like everyone else wants to believe, then we may really have a shot at something. We can’t come out with the gameplan we had against tOSU in ‘06, but for the running backs. That is, we can’t hope to protect, protect, protect our running backs, because all we’re protecting them from is the endzone. We’re going to lose to OU if we come in with a bizarro gameplan of what we did in ‘06 with our TB’s wings clipped. We’re going to have to win our big games this year, not try not to lose them, and yes, I mean that.

So, that’s what we have to do (IMO, lawyers) to become a team that could win it all. Giving each of those five things a 50% chance of occurring, that gives us a 1/32 chance of being in form. You factor in how likely we are to actually win it all, given that we can, and I’m posting the dumb and dumber video again. If we lose less than three games I’ll be really excited.

With a nice open ended question PB.

Ok then, here goes.

1) Win the turnover Battle. This is two fold, one is obviously to curtail our turnovers, which is directly linked to Colt and the O-line in my mind. The other part is to get back to turning the ball over. I remember Derrick Johnson popping out every third ball that came near him. A clutch defensive turn over can win a game all on its own, we might need some of those kinds of breaks to go undefeated.

2) Win the Injury Battle. Remember all those injuries we had in 2005? Yeah neither do I. We have to stay healthy to go undefeated in a competitive conference, and few key injuries on the other side of the ball wouldn’t hurt either.

3) Defense defense defense. As I posted a while ago I think defense was our biggest black eye last year. And the words, Defense wins championships, is not just a catchy phrase. In the past 8 years, the two teams in the MNC have averaged as the 15.8th ranked in the nation in total D. The winners? 6.5th ranked.

In every game they play, the Longhorns must score more points than the other team.

Game, set, and match.

GAME 1 Florida Atlantic -season opener, at home, W
GAME 2 UTEP-Mack brown is something like 26-4 against non con in Texas W
GAME 3 Arkansas Rebuilding year, at home W
GAME 4 Rice -Rice W
GAME 5 Colorado-Rebuilding, Texas is better W
GAME 6 Oklahoma-Sophmore slump, Karma’s a bitch W
GAME 7 Missouri-Home field adavantage. MIZZOU a little over rated (we all saw how OU beat them last year and Texas and OU played about even) W
GAME 8 Oklahoma State-20-2 all time versus OSU, no time to change now. W
GAME 9 Texas Tech-they are still Tech right? let me know when they have a defense, at this point coach boom’s boys are a well oiled machine. W
GAME 10 Baylor-Baylor W
GAME 11 Kansas-Mizzou beats KU, OU beats Mizzou, Texas/Ou about even, Texas wins, BTW this is a basketball school. P.S. possibility Mangino has eaten entire team by this point. W
GAME 12 Texas A&M-They cannot beat us 3 year’s in a row can they?

To understand Texas’ chances to go 12-0 the best place to look is last year’s coaching on defense. It wasn’t bad – it was horrible. Historically bad. No one team has ever wasted so much NFL talent. Defensive line has 4-5 NFL caliber talents, LB at least 2 or so, and 2 at the DB level. No team with 8-11 NFL caliber players has ever produced less.

Enter Will Muschamp and the only hope the Horns have of greatness in 2008. Here is the challenge -

1. Rak and Lamarr must be absolute disruptive menaces – period.
2. Kindle and Muck become big time sack artists.
3. The DBs have to mix up coverages and stay on the same page.

No problem!

We go 12-0 this year for the following reasons:
1. The offensive line gels, and gains the ability to block more than schoolchildren and tame mice.
2. Colt has more than 3 seconds to get rid of the ball, and regains that awesome touch he had as a freshman.
3. The embarrassment of wealth we have at wide reciever lives up to its potential.
4. One or more of our ridiculously talented RB’s has a break out year. (DeSean Hales, I’m looking at you).
5. Our BOOM Motherf**ker defense crushes our enemies, drives them before us, and we hear the lamentations of the women.

Major Applewhite gets plastic surgery and replaces Colt McCoy, who is locked away in the Tower in an Iron Mask.

Here is what I think: we absolutely must win every game!

PB… am I really going to have to start talking sports to talk to you? I’ll do it. Seriously… miss you.

sm