Could UT still end up in the Top 2 after next weekend even if we don’t go to KC for the conference championship?

Hear me out...

Florida’s SOS took a pretty big hit yesterday with both LSU and Georgia losing. While the number of points they’ve been putting up are impressive, who have they really beaten? And if they beat Alabama, that’ll be big, but if they beat Alabama convincingly and Bama drops down like Tech did (after losing to OU) because let’s face it, Bama’s resume ain’t anyting to write home about either, what’s to stop the BCS from keeping UT ahead of Florida like it has been the last four or five weeks?

We may still be in this thing regardless and sitting out next weekend may not be such a bad thing. Obviously the voters will show a lot of love for Florida if they win the SEC, but UT should still have a pretty big edge in the computers, especially if OU stays highly ranked.

I'm just saying.

Thought we could all use a temporary diversion from all the doom and gloom...

This is the true story of four Longhorns fans who decided to attend the November 15th UT-KU game in Lawrence, Kansas and have their life-expectancies significantly shortened. Find out what happens when four jackasses stop being sober and start getting real (drunk)...

The Real (Drunk) World - Lawrence

What do you say we meet the motley cast of B-Listers...

Name: Brad
Code Name: The Difuser
Superpower: Ability to guilt hostile fans of the home team into buying us drinks after they’ve told us to go fornicate with ourselves.
Kryptonite: Cougars, Vodka & Red Bull, and clowns with frowns
Mantra: “Hating me won’t make your team win or your dad love you.”

Name: Josh
Code Name: The Glove
Superpower: Parallel parking. In a car or in life, he just makes everything fit. If a bar is over-crowded, he’ll find a way to get your round ass in that square booth, guaranteed.
Kryptonite: Volcano Tacos, Goldschlager, and inconsiderateness
Mantra: “Just the tip is a half-ass way of doing things.”

Name: Shawn
Code Name: (Whatever he decides his name is going to be that night.)
Superpower: Convincing bartenders, waitresses and hostesses to give us the celebrity treatment at hoi polloi prices.
Kryptonite: Girls with moustaches, Jaeger bombs, and the truth
Mantra: “It’s only a lie if they don't believe it.”

Name: 54b
Code Name: The Senator
Superpower: Inspiring others to use their superpowers early and often (usually to save him).
Kryptonite: Occupied port-a-potties, anything with 2% alcohol by volume or greater, and expectations
Mantra: “If you set your expectations low enough, good things will happen.”

So that’s the crew in a nutty shell. I was going to try and give us a cool team name like, "The Four Whores-men" or "Purple Cobras," but that just wouldn't be our style. We're just four drunk Longhorns fans who went looking for a good time and here’s what we found...

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Now that we've thoroughly established that Muschamp sits at "the right hand of the father" and we've completely explored all the "what happens to Texas' title hopes if OU beats Tech after a last-second game winning Harrell to Crab TD pass gets nullified by a sideline infringement flag thrown for by a ref who once played cards with Barry Switzer" scenarios, I thought we might engage in a little bye-week beat down and revisit a long-standing BON debate.

There have been a number of exhaustive philosophical discussions regarding the Longhorns' non-conference scheduling practices here at the BON...

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Texas vs. Kansas • Memorial Stadium • Lawrence, KS • November 15, 2008

Overview: Something tells me Jayhawks fans didn't expect to be 6-4 at this point in the season when they circled the Texas game on the calendar last summer. Regardless, I don't think KU will have completely turned their attention to basketball season as it'll be Senior Day and I'm sure the memory of UT's last visit to Lawrence still sticks in their collective craw.

Travel tips after the jump...

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In my recurring nightmare there are only a few seconds left in the Longhorns game against the Red Raiders and I’m standing on the sideline at Jones Stadium in Lubbock just a few feet away from the action as Graham Harrell’s ill-advised pass ricochets off the unwitting Texas Tech receiver floating like a feather into the air as Texas safety Blake Gideon runs up under it. Certainly nothing abnormal or Freudian about that right?

But that’s when it gets a little freaky and everything goes slow motion like when I’m dreaming about playing dodgeball against the Swedish Bikini Team. Sorry. Anyway, I look down at my cargo shorts and as luck would have it, my pockets are overflowing with little snack size Snickers bars, the very ones I pilfered from my 4-year-old son’s stash of Halloween candy after he went to bed but not before making his daddy swear not to touch his candy. (But I did it out of love.)

And then it hits me, what if I spread the caramel nougat all over the football to make it really sticky and harder to drop (now even Freud’s getting excited). The plan is “fool” proof and I’m really happy until I reach down into my pocket only to pull out a fist full of empty Snickers wrappers just as the ball cruelly passes through the upstart Freshman’s arms bouncing harmlessly off the turf and into Texas football history forever to be known as Gideon’s Bobble (trademark & web site pending).

Take heart Blake, compared to the guilt I feel knowing I disappointed Jenny Craig by eating sweets right before bed and even worse, did it by stealing candy from my impressionable son, dropping the football that probably would have punched Texas’ ticket to the BCS title game is nothing. Don’t sweat it, happens to the best of us and at least you didn’t wake up and have to explain to your wife why your face is covered in chocolate and your cargo shorts are around your ankles. Hey, don’t judge.

Let’s move on, quickly.

Like many Longhorns Fans I’m sure, I went to bed Saturday night incredulous of the 39-33 last second Tech win I’d just witnessed only to wake up feeling absolutely sick to my stomach on Sunday morning. And it wasn’t because I overindulged in Halloween candy. No need to try and sugarcoat it, that was a huge game, a very tough loss, and it only hurts worse knowing the Horns came within seconds of pulling off what seemed impossible only a few weeks ago: beating four Top 10 teams in a row.

But on a night when nothing went UT’s way in the first half, injuries sidelined several key players, and the players who were on the field played uncharacteristically to what we’d become accustomed to seeing in the previous 8 games, you simply have to grit your teeth on a Sugar Daddy and say it just wasn’t meant to be and move on. There is nothing the coaches, players, or we the fans can do to change the outcome and trying to explain it only breeds more heartache and contempt.

That being said, if that line of psycho-bullshit doesn’t make you feel any better, you’re welcome to pop a Percocet and try traversing my always therapeutic... 

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Elective torture, that’s really the only way I know how to describe what it’s like watching the Texas Longhorns protect their number one ranking week after week. Seriously, I’m pretty sure I have full-blown Stockhom Syndrome because I’m completely and unabashedly loyal to that which torments me every hour, minute, and second of the day. All I can think about is Texas Longhorns Football...at work, at home, awake, asleep, even in flagrante delicto (you try to perform when imagining your goalpost is being torn down).

With so much at stake, perspiring minds what to know. How can any team possibly go undefeated playing four Top Ten teams in a row?  How can Colt McCoy maintain this Captain Insano completion rate? How can Muschamp defeat the spread if he’s counting the bread Clemson’s waving under his nose? And most importantly, does Mack Brown use Grecian Formula or Touch of Gray? I want the truth even though I’m not emotionally stable enough to handle it.

And considering most Texas fans probably promised the All Mighty that they’d never ask for another thing if UT could just beat then #1-ranked OU, I figure after trouncing former #11-ranked Mizzou and narrowly avoiding an upset last weekend to beat #7 OSU 28-24, most Longhorns fans are on the precipice of moral bankruptcy. During the last play of the OSU game, I actually said three Hail Mary’s to make sure no Poke caught Zac Robinson’s Hail Mary. It’s not healthy and I seriously don’t know how much more I can take.

So where do you turn to when you’re not feeling well and displaying symptoms that could very easily get you a suite at the Funny Farm or at least an excused absence from work? Well in today’s economy with health insurance being what it is, you turn to the internet of course and according to 3-Day-Weekend.com, the following excuses, I mean behaviors are possible symptoms that just may precipitate...

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Texas vs. Texas Tech • Jones AT&T Stadium • Lubbock, TX • November 1, 2008

The town is completely flat, the wind seems to blow nonstop, and let’s just say Red Raiders fans aren’t known for being the most hospitable bunch, especially towards Longhorns fans. But while Lubbock may not appeal to your five senses, it will appeal to your sense of adventure and what makes the high plains seem uninhabitable also makes it uninhibited. Texas Tech didn’t get its reputation as one of the biggest party schools in the country for nothing.   

For those of you heading out west this weekend and in addition to all good comments from the "Traveling to Lubbock" Fanpost, here are a few road trip travel tips for Lubbock (previously published in The Eyes Of Texas 2008 Preview Guide)... 

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Forget “Colt McBoy” and say hello to “Dr. McCoy.” Watching the Heisman front-runner lead the Longhorns to a 35-3 halftime advantage – completely extinguishing any hopes Missouri might have had in regards to upsetting the #1 team in the country – was like watching a skilled surgeon perform a routine procedure. The “Good Doctor” and his staff wasted no movements, remained cool, calm, and collected throughout, and when a complication arose, dispatched it almost as if they’d anticipated it. A great example being Colt’s fumble recovery and subsequent 20-yard pass completion to fellow M.D., Dr. Cosby in the second quarter. Only Quan doesn’t deliver babies, he delivers pain.

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Undoubtedly many of you have already read the story about Coach Brown and his staff burying the game ball from the OU win along with some press clippings and other hype at the practice fields as a symbol of the team’s desire to put past victories away and concentrate on future opponents.

 Normally when I hear things like this I invoke Han Solo - Chapter IV, Verse 2: "Hokie religions and ancient weapons are no match for a good blaster at your side, kid." But in this case, who am I to nerd out on Jedi Mack Tricks when it obviously worked. In fact, I think it’s time we explored how you, the totally committed and probably mentally unbalanced Longhorns fan is putting the Mizzou trouncing behind you and getting ready for Okie State.

What symbolic gestures, sacrifices, and other crazy "sh*t" have you done to stay focused and keep UT undefeated?

Hey, nobody's judging you hear...putting your daughter's stuffed animal tiger in the kettle of hot oil you use to fry turkeys was probably a little rash, but it had to be done, right?

Plus, you'll be helping me out. Because I can no longer think for myself, I’ll post the Top 10 responses later this week in 54b's Commentary. If you make the list, you won’t win a t-shirt, but you will win something much more important, the apathy of your fellow BONers. And you know that’s the gift that couldn't give a sh*t.

Okay, unleash hell...or just tell me, "it's okay, I'm sure writer's block happens to lots of guys."

54b

"Grit and Cowbells?" That was the best SI's Austin Murphy could come up with when describing arguably the most significant Texas victory over OU in years? Allow me to offer you a slightly more "bellicose" version...

When Rivalries Go To War

From 1969 to 1978, Michigan (led by former Buckeyes assistant coach Bo Schembechler) and Ohio State (under enigmatic coaching legend Woody Hayes) carved out a series of hotly contested games in their long running rivalry in which both teams entered their annual border clash as dominant college football programs. With conference championship and national title implications often at stake, not to mention bragging rights for either of two fan bases that flat out hate each other, that decade of games has been famously referred to as “The 10-Year War” by Wolverines and Buckeyes fans. Four out of those ten years, both teams entered the game ranked in the Top 5, and six out of the ten years they shared the Big 10 Title. When the dust settled, Michigan held a 5-4-1 advantage and the passion and hatred fueling the rivalry was more explosive than ever.

From 1999 to 2008, Texas (under the leadership of Mack Brown--a former Sooners assistant coach) and Oklahoma (headed by fiery upstart Bob Stoops) have rekindled the Red River Rivalry with a series of memorable games in the new Millennium in which one or both teams were ranked in the Top 10 and the outcome often had conference and national title implications. Unlike “The 10-Year War” however, the last nine years of the TX/OU rivalry have been characterized as largely one-sided in favor of the Sooners who’ve gone 6-3, winning all three times the teams met when they were both ranked in the Top 5, and losing only in when they were decidedly underdogs. Adding even more insult to injury, the Sooners relished two 45+ point blowout wins over the Horns as well. 

Due to the nature and number of wins, many pundits have even gone as far as to suggest that “Stoops has Mack’s number” and Oklahoma “plays a smarter, more aggressive brand of football than Texas.” To put it another way, “OU plays with more heart and just wants it more.” That's an accusation few Longhorns fans were willing to admit publicly but probably allowed themselves to believe in their heavy hearts after witnessing a myriad of soul-scratching losses. And while the recent National Championship run certainly did wonders for UT’s wounded pride, when it came to Brown vs. Stoops, there was still something missing. 

On October 11, 2008, the search ended as the unsatisfied souls of the burnt orange faithful found redemption on the gridiron of the Cotton Bowl where the #5 Texas Longhorns wore their hearts on their sleeves and refused to lose in an epic battle against the #1 Oklahoma Sooners. In arguably the most competitive edition of the Red River Rivalry in over 20 years, the Longhorns outplayed, out-coached, and out-muscled a Sooners squad being hailed as Bob Stoops’ best team ever. And in doing so, they rewrote history, turning a one-sided rivalry into a “war” for the foreseeable future.

For there is not a doubt in any Longhorn’s mind that the Sooners will return to the Cotton Bowl next year hell bent on avenging this loss along with a threatened fan base in tow expressing more vitriol for their burnt orange-clad counterparts than ever. But regardless of the outcome of next year’s Red River Rivalry game, Longhorns fans will enter the annual clash knowing the lines have been redrawn, the playing field leveled, and their equal footing in the rivalry restored.

Perhaps the true significance of UT’s 45-35 upset will only reveal itself when the dust finally settles on the Brown-Stoops era, but when it does, I imagine fans from both sides of the Red River will look back at this time as the most hotly contested period in the hundred-plus year tilt and remember October 11, 2008 as the day the rivalry went to war.    

(Warning: If you are currently feeling a sense of urgency to seek and destroy anything in your path, I recommend punching a pillow, preferably one with a red pillow case.)

As for those of you who think I've succumb to hyperbole and are currently questioning my sanity, perspective and misplaced priorities, here’s another edition of...

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