It is painful to write at this moment, after watching 6 dropped passes and two dropped interceptions, Deon Beasley playing like my five year-old, the entire Texas offensive line crying for mommy, and GD/McCoy showing the shivers until the third quarter to take the ball up top over some incredibly outmanned cornerbacks, we learned five things about this Longhorns team that bode well for this year and next.

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Trust is what makes Texas special; trust is what makes them vulnerable. Trust in Colt McCoy allows Greg Davis to treat the passing game like the running game -  whn Colt completes 80% of his throws and can scramble for first downs on other passing plays that break down, how can you not trust it. Trust in Quan Cosby and Jordan Shipley allow Colt to release throws before either receiver has made their break and know that the ball will be caught. This quadrangle of trust is leading to an offense of historic proportions, an 8-0 record, and dreams well beyond expectations for this season.

At the same time, this intense trust is beginning to make the Horns' offense to become simplified. When every pass goes to Shipley or Cosby, and every successful run is the same  trap play to the left, defenses gradually begin to re-position to get better angles on the blockers or jump the passing routes. The offense gets tougher, which makes the Horns even more reliant on plays and players they trust.

So the question for the Horns is, how do they build trust in new plays and players while inside the crucible of an undefeated potential Big 12 title and national championship season?

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No, this isn't a link to an as yet undiscovered 2009 calendar for our female readers. It is a call to our defensive backs that, if the Horns are to hang on to the precious #1 ranking, they are ALL going to have to step up and be men.

Why the DB's in particular?

Because of how Oklahoma State runs their offense.

I broke down the OSU-Missouri game tape to get an idea about the X's and O's involved in slowing down the Cowpokes (details after the jump). Bottom line: OSU likes to find the single coverage matchups and throw the ball high so that their tall, athletic receivers can outjump or shield off the DB's and thus outplay them for the ball.  A large fraction of OSU's touchdown passes in the red zone and passes for first downs on third and long are of this nature. If the Horns want to stop the Cowboys, they are going to have toi find a way to go up and play the ball. That means you Deon Beasley. And you too, Ryan Palmer and Earl Thomas. If there is a weakness in the Texas secondary right now, it's playing the ball effectively in the air, and if the DB's don't step up and work on finding the ball in the air and being absolutely determined to get it, the game will be a shootout for sure.

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Now that the Horns have held onto the #1 ranking for one full week, I thought I might open the distasteful but titillating comparison of the 2005 MNC team and this 2008 Longhorn team. Many view the 2005 team as an inevitable force of nature with VY as the eye of the hurricane. Nervous tentative comments about this years team, driven by scars from meltdowns in 2006 and 2007, would have us believe that the 2008 Horns are getting by on moxie, wiliness, and smoke and mirrors. Others would argue that this is silly because we haven't seen what the 2008 team can do for a whole season. I thought the question worth entertaining because I sense the fans could have a little more confidence in this 2008 team.

I'm here to argue that the play of the 2008 team is every bit a force of nature as that of 2005, only different. If the 2005 team was a hurricane, the 2008 team is an army of loggers with chainsaws and unlimited fuel. The teams, or  "trees," on the schedule will be chopped down with ruthless efficiency rather than speed and fury. As college football fans, we are used to seeing teams win through explosive plays and dominant defenses; other methods of success are suspect. But this Horns team is as capable of chewing through teams as a top NFL offense.

In some ways, 2008 may be more likely to be our year than 2009 because the transcendant play of Brian Orakpo, who may be as dominant at DE as VY was at QB, will not be in play in 2009. That doesn't mean 2009 won't be a MNC year, it just means that this 2008 team, while young in many areas, has terrific talent that is capable of winning against all comers.

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For all those pessimistic prognosticators in your favorite media, neighborhood and family, you can take heart that, since 2000, Texas is 10-0 at home, 4-0 on the road vs. ranked Big 12 teams. The problem is on neutral fields (OU and Big 12 championship games) where Texas is only 4-6 (although they are 4-1 since 2005). Message?

Mack Brown knows how to coach this game and the players will be ready.

The problem games for the Horns since 2000 have been the "trap" games against unranked teams (Texas Tech 2002, 2003, A&M 2006, 2007, Kansas State 2006, 2007).

Good news- the only games Texas has left against unranked teams are both at home (Baylor, A&M).

Well I guess you could call it a safari. An unbeatable business opportunity arose this past summer, leading me to spend in Tanzania the 3 weeks of the football season just prior to jailbreak of the Land Thieves. My brother’s reaction might be similar to yours, “Where’s Tanzania at, exactly?” It’s the country just south of Kenya in East Africa and probably the world’s number one safari destination at the moment, featuring Serengeti National Park, Ngorongoro Crater, and Mount Kilimanjaro, the world’s largest mountain and erstwhile planting location for a five foot long Longhorn flag

So the trip, despite its awesome spectacularity (I doubt that’s a real word – MS Word told me so), was, for a football addict like me, something like going off heroin cold turkey must be to a back alley junkie.

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Now that the results practice has slipped out of public eyes, into the ears of selected sportswriters and onto the mouths of coaches and selected, usually senior, players, the dedicated fan longs to know how things are proceeding. Entering this season, major questions existed about the maturation of the younger receivers and the offensive line, about who would play defensive tackle, and who would rise among the many young players in the secondary and at other positions.

The entirety of Burnt Orange Nation is fed on the trickle of bleached and sanitized comments from coaches and players and fuzzy video clips of apparently random plays from practices and scrimmages posted on MB-TF as evidence of the dawning brilliance of the Texas Longhorns, version 2008.0 . Interpreting comments to the press and these videos is tricky, especially in Mack Brown Nation, where usually there is some uselessly positive babble about working hard, learning, being physical, etc. trolled out when any player is discussed. However, human nature is what it is, and the excitement of coaches and players can sometimes not be contained, while silence about other players is probably deafening.

I offer the following cryptic, admittedly mal-informed "State of the Horns" as interpreted from three forms of reliable data: (1) repeated mentions of players and their performance from multiple players and coaches on different days, (2) changes in the tone and adjectives used to describe players as the first game approaches, unusually detailed descriptions of players and/or situations, and (3) the general absence of specific comments about certain players for which we might expect considerable comments. Below I offer my nickels' worth on the major emergent themes from the first two weeks of fall practice.

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With unbridled enthusiasm for football like the foam in a boiling pot, Horns fans are salivating for the season. The murmur of "Texas Fight" in our subconscious begins to leak into our unguarded moments. The faith that comes with a new year is deep, as all the "athletes-in-waiting" that were supposedly suppressed by the past favoritism for experienced but presumably less talented players are now taking the field. As fans, WE BELIEVE this year will be different. Or will it? Should we believe, or are we all falling victim to the same unbridled coachspeak, especially the Mack Brown kind, that always focuses on the positive, however meager. We have awesome and dedicated reporting eyewitnesses from practice (Rollo Tomasi, HornBrain, texasfan05) that raise our hopes. What can we really get from watching a public practice?

I think that, as with everything in life, success as a pre-season fan comes from two strategies. One is the approach I take while searching for my wife's anniversary gift each year - I don't have a clue, but wonderful things will present themselves. For a Horns fan, this emerges as the following thoughts: I know nothing. More than half the players are new, and I don't know what they are going to do. We have two new major coaches that will govern what plays, formations, and players we will see. Who knows what they will come up with. I am blissfully unaware and non-analyzing. I'll just cheer on the team when they run out on the field.

While there may be fans like this who read this site, I'm guessing they've gone back to work, are watching soaps, mowing the lawn, or whatever else they were doing before they got this deep into this post.

Now for the rest of you, who like me, can't stop analyzing and anticipating the coming season regardless of the absence of any hard data, we have strategy number 2 (read out loud in a bad Chinese accent while sitting on the floor in the lotus position): Reading the Tea Leaves.

So what exactly do the leaves say... Well one way to read them is to compare statements that were made this time last year to those just posted on MB-TF and filter out anything related to "working hard," "fast," "having fun," "learning," "talented," and other such meaningless prattle.

Witness: August 6, 2007, Greg Davis: "Offensive lineman-wise we're trying to fill a couple spots obviously. Cedric Dockery coming back from the knee injury is getting back into the flow of things. We're a little light in that area, but the first group is doing a great job. Both tackles are really talented, Adam Ulatoski and Tony Hills.

Read: the offensive line will suck in 2007, especially at guard and center.

Fast forward to Aug 5, 2008, Greg Davis, "I do think we have as deep a line as I've ever been around. Obviously there's some separation because several guys have more experience. We have some young guys that have tremendous talent, and they're in that 13 or 14 people I was talking about....we're really pleased with our recruiting and with the guys we've brought in. But we don't feel like Chris Hall will have to play five positions in one ball game like he did last year. What we've tried to do is find two centers, three guards and three tackles. I think we'll be able to do that. And if we can play two full teams, that's always our goal is to be able to play two full groups."

Read: The Horns will have a very good offensive line and shouldn't see as much of a drop-off when players get injured, such as last year when Adam Ulatoski had a dislocated elbow in the TCU game and the Horns proceeded to struggle against Central Florida, look lost against KState and lose to Oklahoma in the next three games (not that there weren't other reasons).

So to my further reading of the tea leaves...Let's see, tap out some tea into my palm, blow gently, and..ah yes...

WR - we have good talent at competing for the ball in Williams and Buckner, and good timing between McCoy and Cosby and Shipley. Shipley is healthy for the first time at the beginning of the season. We don't have transcendant speed at the position. Look for receivers to strugge to get open, because McCoy just talks about knowing where Cosby will be. That doesn't help when the defender is right with him.

RB - lots of options and talent, with perhaps transcendant talent in Whittaker.

QB - Chiles can play QB without embarassing himself, but the mystery remains about why Sherrod Harris is not ahead of him at QB.

Offensive creativity. Every single observer and coach mentions new wrinkles and packages, including putting a WR in motion in the backfield as an extra run option. Confidence abounds in putting these in. Last year, there was only schizophrenia about whether to be a running or a passing team. Not one practice observer complained about the WR bubble screeen.

DL - speed, speed, and more speed. Great pursuit and pass rush. However....The offensive line keeps opening nice holes for the running game. Our DL will be vulnerable against a power running team, but the Horns don't play anyone who can make them pay for smallish DL over 4 quarters EXCEPT OU.

LB- A potentially transcendant group, especially at OLB, where Orakpo might drop back as a fourth LB and Kindle could be the team's second-best pass rusher. Seems 1000 years since last year when Mack was saying that, "We've got a couple of players who were instrumental in our championship and have given a lot to the program..."

DB - Earl Thomas, a RS freshman is not only a starter but a potentially transcendant player. observers describe receivers as "blamketed," "smothered," The Horns seem to be shaping up to be a good pass defense.

Defensive creativity. The best players will play. Witness: Keenan Robinson "started" at LB over Kindle because he, unlike Kindle, was at spring practice. By day 2, Kindle had moved past Robinson. Ishie Oduegwu has the most experience and is getting the least reps. Colt McCoy remarks about the confusion and uncertain deployments of the defense. Boom!

Overall coaching creativity. The whole structure of fall pratice was changed so that coaches could teach the freshmen in a separate session and slow things down for them. In GD's vernacular, reducing the size of their "swollen" brains. This, my friends, is what PB is talking about when he says "player development."

Intangibles, oops, just had a gust of wind. The tea leaves are gone...Guess I'll have to play dumb and wait to see about that one. I was starting to get cross-eyed anyway.

Right after the big win over Arizona State, I jotted down a few New Year's resolutions for the Longhorns and expressed the vain hope that 2 would come true. So... given nothing else to do on a sultry day, I thought I would check in on my list and see how the year was shaping up. Are the Horns saddling up for the rodeo or the dude ranch circuit? Let's have a peek...

For those who like to read the end of the book first, the score is 1 CHECK, 4 halfway there, 4 jury still out, and 3 XXXX thanks for playing. On the other hand, with regard to one resolution I didn't make, that Mack would grow a brain and/or tap into his personal creativity (didn't really want to go there...), can I CHECK your bags, Mr. Muschamp and Mr. Applewhite?

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I know the eyes of Texas are in Houston, wondering whether Texas can stay with the basketball buzzsaw that is Memphis, but.... on the eve (well morning actually) of the Orange White Jamboree, I thought I would weigh in with a few comments about spring practice...

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