Bevo’s Daily Roundup: It’s time to focus on the Alamo Bowl

The Alamo Bowl matchup against the Utah Utes is on our mind.

How will it pan out for the Texas Longhorns? If history has anything to say, given head coach Tom Herman’s winning record in the postseason, we may be on the verge of an upset over Utah (11-2), whose only losses this season have come at the hands of the USC Trojans and the Oregon Ducks, who bested Utah in the PAC-12 Conference Championship game.

Herman’s teams, it seems, know how to show up when it counts. In the 2015 Peach Bowl, during the first season of his two-year tenure with the Houston Cougars, Herman’s squad trounced Jimbo Fisher’s Florida State Seminoles, just a year removed from a College Football Playoff appearance. In 2017, during Herman’s first year at Texas, the Longhorns walked all over the Missouri Tigers in the Texas Bowl. And last year – like you don’t already know – the Longhorns earned a signature win against the Georgia Bulldogs in the Sugar Bowl.

Winning is fun. Talking about it is fun, too.

WHAT THE WISE MEN ARE SAYING ABOUT THE LONGHORNS

247Sports: The Flagship: The latest on Texas’ OC search

Longhorns Wire: Vegas odds: Who will be the next Texas offensive coordinator?

NEWS FROM ELSEWHERE IN LONGHORN LAND AND THE BIG 12

• There’s one less name to speculate over as it relates to Texas’ offensive coordinator search: Kirk Ciarrocca, who will become the next offensive coordinator for the Penn State Nittany Lions, according to a report from Brett McMurphy of Stadium. Word on the college football streets was that Herman was considering Ciarrocca after he helped coach a top-10 offensive team in SP+ for Minnesota Golden Gophers this season, in part helping lead the team to the program’s first 10-win season in more than a century.

• It took five weeks to get back here, but Texas women’s basketball (7-4) is now ranked in the Associated Press’ top-25 after their win over the top-ranked Stanford Cardinal over the weekend. In the preseason AP poll, Texas was ranked No. 15. Next up for the Longhorns will be the Northwestern State Demons on Sunday at 1 p.m. Central.

• Former Longhorns Jaxson Hayes continues to ball for the New Orleans Pelicans. The underachieving Pelicans (9-23) bested the Denver Nuggets (21-9) on Christmas Day.

• According to our SB Nation neighbors Frogs O’ War, the TCU Horned Frogs have been put on a one-year probation following several self-reported incidents. From Frogs O’ War: Thirty-three athletes were found to have been paid for work that they did not complete over the course of summer employment, leading to a fine and one year probation for TCU. The athletes, unnamed but reported as being football and men’s and women’s basketball players, were not clocking out from summer jobs, leading to $20,000 in unearned payments over a four year period. 22 of the 33 athletes were found to have competed while ineligible, according to the NCAA.