When your team takes out a damn good Oklahoma squad as the Longhorns did last Saturday, it becomes time--as Mack Brown acknowledged--to refocus your goals with the Big Prize officially in play.
And when, as the nation's new #1 team, your guys then whip another solid team as badly as Texas thrashed Missouri this evening...
No.
If Texas has given its fans every reason to Believe, the inescapable reality of win #7 is that game #8 now looms larger than ever, yet another dark rain cloud hovering on the near horizon. Even in the immediate afterglow of victory, it's hard not to think about Oklahoma State, who in methodically destroying Baylor today very clearly confirmed their desire and ability to have a say in how this all turns out.
I don't bring this up because tonight's victory isn't worth celebrating; it most certainly is. It's more like tonight's victory very loudly confirmed that--holy crap--this is Real... something like, I imagine, that which a father feels when he holds his first born child for the first time.
Tomorrow night at 7:00 p.m. the Texas Longhorns football team will debut #1 in the 2008 BCS Standings. And it shouldn't be particularly close.
So as you toast your last shot tonight, see if you don't smile and shudder a bit at the same time. Because now... 2008 can only bring glory you'll never forget, or pain that will stay with us for a long, long time to come. We're all fathers with this team now. We've held it and felt it and know what it could grow up to become...
Now go on, get your ass outta here and go celebrate tonight--you ain't hurt.
We'll talk tomorrow about how to knock the next motherf**ker out.