Is Texas Back After Upsetting Oklahoma? (By Daniel Seahorn)

[primal defense]

Colorful and victorious, Texas has boosted excitement in the Big 12 and college football




DALLAS -- Texas defensive end Breckyn Hager has often been told he resembles Green Bay linebacker Clay Matthews. Same flowing blond hair, same side of the ball, same dashing flair.

"Different positions," Hager corrected.

Well, yeah, but the similarity persisted especially when Hager added that is father had somehow accessed Matthews' NFL Combine numbers from 2009.

"Mine are better," Hager said.

Never mind all this came in the moments following Texas' 48-45 Red River Showdown win Saturday at the Cotton Bowl. It's safe to say Hager's head is all over the place. The self-proclaimed "young prophet" is currently working on what he calls "a Nobel Peach Prize to prove God's existence."

Hager's head is all over the place, but contrary to his remarks, one of those places is not the NFL. For now, it's wise just to take this Type A, wild-man personality for he what he is -- a window into the Big 12 world.

Thanks to the likes of Hager, the Big 12 is the most exciting place to be in college football at the moment. Not the best, necessarily, but the most exciting.







 



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The conference easily mocked for its lack of defense has always been fun. Now it's suddenly relevant with three teams ranked in the top 11, one of them undefeated West Virginia.

Oklahoma's Tyler Murray is the best player this side of Tua Tagovailoa. Will Grier is throwing missiles for the Mountaineers. Former Texas Tech quarterback Patrick Mahomes is undefeated in the NFL. Baker Mayfield -- the living of embodiment of Big 12 swag -- just won his first NFL start.

No surprise the conference leads FBS averaging almost 36 points per team.

But the conference is nothing without Oklahoma and Texas being good at the same time. For the first time in about a decade, that is the case. And it could get a whole lot better.

"We just did something historical," Hager said. "I'd love to play them again."

In the immediate afterglow of Red River, an OU-Texas rematch a delicious prospect. If the Longhorns and Sooners do indeed finish (in some order) 1-2 in the Big 12, they would meet again Dec. 1 in the conference's championship game.







 



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Based on results to date, the winner would have a tremendous push into the College Football Playoff. That also would mark the first same-reason rematch in the rivalry that counts itself right up there with Alabama-Auburn and Michigan-Ohio State.

"You know what, that's a good question. I haven't thought about it," said Texas Gov. Greg Abbott while congratulating the Longhorns in the Cotton Bowl's south end zone Saturday. "There really could be a rematch. You know what? Yeah."

It's been quite a drought for the Large Dozen. The last national championship was Texas' in 2005. Only the Pac-12 (2004) has a longer streak among Power Five leagues without a national title.

This week, Texas moved into the top 10 for the first time since 2010. No. 11 Oklahoma, which has two playoff appearances during a run of three straight Big 12 titles, dropped four spots after losing by a field goal with 9 seconds left.







That's about the best result the Big 12 could have hoped to see -- close outcome, two football factories (plus West Virginia) alive for the playoff headed toward the halfway point of the season.

Afterward, Hager greeted reporters like he greets the world. Everything is on the table. Every answer is unfiltered.

"These coaches are the best coaches in the country," said Hager, a senior from Austin, Texas. "… To slowly see us embrace the most difficult things in the world, I'm talking about the earliest mornings, things I don't even know if they're legal.

"But we did. We kept buying in."

Not since Colt McCoy was leading Texas to the 2009 BCS Championship Game have the Longhorns been this relevant. Not since Oklahoma's Brian Bosworth has there been a mouth in the conference to describe it in such colorful terms.







"I do things that normal people wouldn't do," Hager said. "That's why I am so confident. My confidence can be linked to results."

He makes no secret of being dissatisfied when Tom Herman replaced Charlie Strong in 2017. Early on, Hager showed up at the office of new defensive coordinator Todd Orlando.

"I quit. I'm quitting," Hager recalled saying. "I got moved to second on the depth chart. They were destroying me. I was destroying them back. [Orlando] goes, 'You're not quitting. Go eat, go put your clothes on, and go to practice. I'm sitting there crying."

It says a lot about Hager's character that Herman allows him to speak to the media. Then again, if he was silenced, Hager would still find a way.







 



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How's this character: The family of legendary linebacker Tommy Nobis -- the first Longhorn selected No. 1 overall in the draft -- allowed Hager to wear Nobis' retired No. 60.  First in last year's Texas Bowl and then again Saturday against Oklahoma.

"I thought early when we got here two years ago, maybe that's just a show or an act of some sort," Herman said. "That's him. We love him. We embrace him, voted him a captain."

This is a glimpse behind Mack Brown's assertion that Texas is the New York Yankees of college football. You either love 'em or hate 'em.

"I would say, all my followers on social media, 90 percent of them, want me to lose and fail," Hager said. "I'm fine with that."







 



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Hager has an inside look at this turnaround as quarterback Sam Ehlinger's roommate. Ehlinger has been the target of much criticism at a position that hasn't much thrived at Texas since McCoy was knocked out with a bum shoulder after the fifth snap of that Rose Bowl title game.

Texas and its quarterback position were never the same -- until now. Ehlinger emerged against Oklahoma has a dual-threat weapon who hasn't been intercepted since the opening-day Maryland loss.

"If I'm going to confess to you I'm a young prophet, Sam's destined for greatness," Hager said. "These things just don't happen. He's an angry lion. He beat Kyler Murray today. Kyler Murray is one of the great athletes in college football. We saw what people said after Maryland. We saw how toxic our fans were. We looked at each other and laughed."

Something has happened to the Longhorns in the 37 days since that loss to the Terps, now a respectable 3-2. Hager and the defense have been effective enough to be No. 2 in the Big 12, getting 10 turnovers. They are tied for the conference lead in forced fumbles (six).







 



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The game-winning field goal was accomplished by an all-true freshman trio -- long-snapper Justin Mader, holder Ryan Bucjevski and kicker Cameron Dicker

"We're not done; we're not even close to being done," Hager said. "God told me we were going to win this this game. And God told me I was going to get my hair cut."

That will happen, the young prophet has already said, when the Horns win a Big 12 title.

https://www.cbssports.com/college-football/news/colorful-and-victorious-texas-has-boosted-excitement-in-the-big-12-and-college-football/

 

[primal defense]

What's next for Longhorns after Texas-sized triumph?


AUSTIN, Texas -- In the aftermath of Texas' biggest victory this decade, Chris Nelson slapped on the Golden Hat Trophy and repeatedly rubbed his lineman-sized belly.

Defensive end Breckyn Hager rocked a burnt orange-banded white cowboy hat atop his flowing golden locks like he was auditioning for some Quentin Tarantino Western.

And just outside the Cotton Bowl elevators leading down to a boisterous Longhorns locker room, fellow end Charles Omenihu engulfed Cameron Dicker"The Kicker" with a bear hug.

This is what "Texas is back" actually looked like.

After so many false alarms that turned ESPN play-by-play man Joe Tessitore's famous phrase into a punchline, this felt different than anything before.

The Longhorns didn't just beat some overhyped big-name opponent primed to plummet. They took down an Oklahoma team coming off two College Football Playoff appearances in the past three years and armed with one of the country's most devastating playmakers in quarterback Kyler Murray.

Texas didn't just defeat the Sooners, either. The Longhorns dominated, thoroughly. Sure, they needed Dicker's last-second field goal from 40 yards out to secure the 48-45 win. But after taking a 21-point lead into the fourth quarter, Texas left no doubt as to who the better side was.

This was no upset. And no accident.

And though Murray would ignite OU's improbable comeback with a series of electric plays late, the thousands of empty seats on the crimson side of the Cotton Bowl midway through the fourth quarter told the real story.



 
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Texas -- off to its best start since 2009 and ranked in the top 10 for the first time since 2010 -- is finally on its way back to national relevance in coach Tom Herman's second season.

 



Nick Wagner/Austin American-Statesman via AP

"We've taken some really big steps here the last few weeks, I'm not going to deny that," Herman said. "I'm not going to downplay that for these players. They have taken some very important steps in this program's development and its progress. ... It would be foolish for me to not understand the big picture."

Herman has been steadfast in keeping the big picture in mind. That's why his message Saturday in the locker room differed little from the one he gave to his team following its disheartening season-opening loss at Maryland.

"I said to them (at Maryland) this game will not define us -- how we respond to it will," Herman said Monday. "I told them that about this Oklahoma game. That game won't define us. How we respond to it will.

"This is not the ultimate goal."

As well as the Longhorns played Saturday, their ultimate goal -- a fifth national championship -- still remains a ways out. Even Herman had to scoff at the notion Texas was suddenly ready to contend for the playoff after one Red River victory.

"Have you seen the last four years?" he said, referencing the program's streak of non-winning regular seasons. "I don't think we're at the place where we can say winning is expected -- and that's OK. Just that word in my mind reads entitlement, reads arrogance.

"Hopefully one day our 'C game' will be good enough to beat some people. Right now, we have to play our best to win. But if we do play our best, we have a great chance."

Herman is right. After all, both the Maryland and OU performances underscored that in opposite ways. The margin for error still is nowhere close to where it used to be during the Mack Brown heyday.

Herman, in particular, lamented the lack of game-breaking speed the Longhorns have on offense compared to OU, which, in addition to Murray, boasts a pair of burners on the outside in wideouts Marquise Brown and CeeDee Lamb.

"We're fast on the defense. Those guys are faster," Herman said. "We had a long conversation in our recruiting department about finding those guys for our team. We're not elite fast on offense right now.

"But we're playing to our strengths."

That has included tailoring a ball-control offense built around a bulldozing quarterback who just delivered the finest performance of his career.

One year after going toe-to-toe against OU Heisman winner Baker Mayfield as a true freshman, sophomore Sam Ehlinger passed for 314 yards, rushed for another 72 and totaled 5 touchdowns against the Sooners.

Ehlinger wasn't always perfect. But he was always in command, down to the final drive when he calmly drove the Longhorns into range for Dicker's game-winning field goal when OU had the momentum.

"Our team really believes in him right now," Herman said. "And there's a psychology to that."

Above all, that's what Texas has missed the most this decade. A quarterback to rally around.


 



That could've been fleeting in the wake of the Maryland game, when Ehlinger tossed the game-ending interception. Herman made sure that it wasn't.

"I told him, 'You don't need to look over your shoulder. I'll tell you when you do. You didn't lose the Maryland game for your team. We all lost that game,'" Herman said. "Having the head coach believe you allows you a little more confidence."

That unwavering has paid off, as Ehlinger has yet to throw an interception since.

"We made the decision for him to be our starting quarterback," said Herman, who called Ehlinger on the way home last week to remind him to just "grip and rip" against the Sooners.

"One game wasn't going to deter us."

To that end, one game alone doesn't mean Texas is back, either. But the Longhorns are in new waters. They sure seem to be on their way.

http://www.espn.com/college-football/story/_/id/24941757/texas-longhorns-whats-next-red-river-triumph

 

[TexExSpur]

Not even close to being BACK, Texas will be back when they're hoisting trophies other than the Golden Hat over their heads.  

This squad should have beat OU last season as well.

 

[oldhorn2]

Those 2 games, the Maryland loss, and the unspectacular win over Tulsa, shows me UT is not back. I can only go by what I saw watching every play of every game. Improving yes, but not back. 

In 1969 we had to pull a miracle to beat UCLA.....in 2005 we had to do the same to beat Kansas for Gods sake!....Just because we sometimes struggle against teams we should easily handle does not indicate that we are mediocre....The fact that we pulled it out after Maryland shows that if we are not back we are certainly right at the door step.

In 1968 after 3 straight years of 6-4(yes, even St DKR had a few rough years) we started bu losing to TT and tying Houston. Talk about dark times....but then....we started winning....and winning some more. We did not lose another game until 31 games later, and even then we had to fumble 10 times to finally lose.......damned right we are back. We are back until we show that we are not back. This is very different from the..."we suck until we dont"...In fact it is polar opposite. 

Will we lose again this year?...Most likely we will at some point, but it is no longer certain. The football aint round...luck does come into play, let downs happen to the best teams, but by God we have a chance to be on the march to greatness. I plan on enjoying the ride.

 

[North Texas Golfer]

Not even close to being BACK, Texas will be back when they're hoisting trophies other than the Golden Hat over their heads.  

This squad should have beat OU last season as well.

Not even close to being BACK? You may be right but you have to admit that we're damn sure closer than we were last year or the year before or the year before or the year before. Hell, we're closer than we were 5 weeks, right?

 

[dillohorn]

Reality is this team is improving steadily. Reality is this team is not back yet though. That is all.  

 

[Bogey]

We are back until we show that we are not back. This is very different from the..."we suck until we dont"...In fact it is polar opposite. 

^^^THIS!!!

I think it's fair to now say we don't suck. What is meant by "being back" is subjective.

Back to winning ways –certainly.

Back to national prominence –maybe for the moment, but still TBD.

I contend that we are now the conference top dog and will remain so until proven otherwise. The manner in which we compete will tell the story.

The Horns control their own destiny and will enter each remaining game carrying high expectations with no sense of entitlement.

 

[North Texas Golfer]

"The finished product is still under construction"

Not original with me but I thought it summed it up very well. 

 

[hookemhorb]

I will say that at least I'm not looking forward to next year. In years past, about this time of year, our season was all but over--just hoping to become bowl eligible.

I haven't been this excited about a season after 6 games in a long, long, long time.

 

[texasdalton]

I will say that at least I'm not looking forward to next year. In years past, about this time of year, our season was all but over--just hoping to become bowl eligible.

I haven't been this excited about a season after 6 games in a long, long, long time.

Best said right there.

i haven’t been this happy to watch football this far into the season in a long time.

I have been watching a lot of football and played a lot over the years. Our team has the blueprint to make a run at making the playoffs.

We have the personnel to make it to the playoffs and thats all we need. Tickets to the show.

 

[North Texas Golfer]

Best said right there.

i haven’t been this happy to watch football this far into the season in a long time.

I have been watching a lot of football and played a lot over the years. Our team has the blueprint to make a run at making the playoffs.

We have the personnel to make it to the playoffs and thats all we need. Tickets to the show.

Your 2nd sentence sums up where I'm at. This is the first year in awhile that I've actually watched the Texas-OU game live instead of recording it while I was playing golf. In fact, I have watched every game live so far which hasn't happened in several years.

I really believe something is different this year and I have all the confidence in the world that we have turned the corner. And I believe that even though it is quite possible that we will lose 1 or even 2 more games this year. But it is also quite possible that we may also very well not lose another game this year.