Mack Brown will meet the press this morning at 11:00 a.m. local time. As with all of his pressers, you can watch the streaming action live on TexasSports.TV.
Well, that was fun. Fried banana pudding, pb&j, and bubble gum on the Midway at the State Fair of Texas that is. Getting gashed by your rival, not so much. In fact, the stat of the day in losing to OU drops us from 3rd to 5th all-time in winning percentage. Guess who moved up a notch to 4th place on the all time list? Three guesses and the first two don't cOUnt. So there's that as well.
The Horns were whipped in just about every phase of the game and it wasn't even close. Mack Brown mentioned the keys to victory in his post game remarks. In each case the team underachieved.
We had said we needed to win the turnover ratio coming in. We had to win the penalties coming in. We had to win the red zone coming in, and we had to win third-downs and I'm not sure we won any of them. I think we lost all of them. And those were the four chances for us to win the game.
All of this is true, but as Peter Bean aptly pointed out in his post game offensive review, no squad was more visibly beat than the offensive line. I'm sure Coach Searels is a proud man. But that performance was by no means close to an acceptable standard at The University of Texas. I did not see where OU out schemed us up front. They were clearly more physical and won almost every push battle. The Sooner front four played in our backfield. A more apt visual was expressed by Kevin Sherrington of the Dallas Morning News, "OU outmanned Texas' offensive line,..and hit so hard air bags were going off in the parking lot."
This is what I took away from the game. We got out muscled. Period. And that is not our standard and had better not be going forward. Else I'm afraid more dark days for the program portend no matter how many four- and five-star recruits we land.
Mack Brown will move back toward a business like demeanor and putting his team in proper context. We're not consistently good enough to be discussed as a ranked team. Did some of that climb up the polls in recent weeks give the players a feeling of overconfidence? Arguably it did. I'm not convinced it was a lack of preparation or effort.
I don't have any insight to offer other than what you have not already dissected for yourselves the last 36 hours. Suffice to say that in my book, it would be the right message to send to the team that awards are only given to players who have earned the distinction in the context of team performance.
I'm sure there were a couple of individual efforts worthy of mention, chiefly Fozzy Whitaker, but can't think of any other player that stood out.
After several weeks of playing on the road, it will be interesting to see the fan reception next week against Oklahoma State. The Cowboys come to DKR with an impressive season-to-date resume and similar offensive experience the Longhorns faced in the Cotton Bowl.
You are already familiar with the names to watch: Weeden and Blackmon. But OSU is not a top-five ranked team because of only two players. They have serious talent across their entire team. Look for Mack to focus more on discussing what the Longhorns must do in preparation moving forward than wasting precious PR moments moping about the OU loss, as eye opening as it was.
But take heart BONizens, Mack Brown has never lost the following game after a defeat to OU. We got that going for us at least.
Join us here for the live presser action.
Hook ‘em.