Our Texas Longhorns as "Most Surprising Team" in NCAA

[beevomav]

Phil Steele writes a highly read college football preview magazine. One of those pages is devoted to Steele's Most Surprising teams and this season he has Texas at the top of the list.

From an article by Christian Corona, here are some of the reasons for Steele's selection of the Longhorns.

The Longhorns return 17 starters from a team that went 8-5 a year ago and won the Holiday Bowl. Texas went without either of its top three running backs, or freshman wideout Jaxon Shipley, playing at 100 percent and, occasionally, not playing at all, over the last half of the season. But the 'Horns, playing with freshmen starting at quarterback, running back, wide receiver, left tackle, and center, managed to win three more games than the previous year and put themselves in a position to improve further in 2012.

"This is the second year for their new coordinators' systems and remember that four national champs in the last 12 years have been off 5-loss seasons," Steele points out.

The entire article is available here: College football expert Phil Steele tabs Texas as his 'most surprising team' of 2012, DE Alex Okafor as an All-American | College Sports Blog | Sports News | News for Dallas, Texas | The Dallas Morning News

 

[bbdude]

Saw this when it was released and thought about writing an article on it but I am not sure what to think of Steele's analysis on some of this stuff. Back in the day his point spread info was pretty decent but as much as I hope Texas makes the NC game not sure they will this year. Again we are putting all the rocks on the qb position which should be improved (but there are no guarantees). Texas could be the the biggest surprise or they could have another 8 win season. Either way, football kicks off # MONTHS FROM TODAY IN AUSTIN!

 

[beevomav]

I see nothing but improvement this season and it has to do with a better running game and defense. We lost our top three backs and it cost us, by my eyes, two games. The Longhorn D held Mizzou and KSU to 17 points and with no running game the offense only scored 5 and 13 points. With a healthy set of backs we win both those games.

Going into the second season of this defense and with another stellar year of recruiting I just don't see teams scoring a lot of points on this team. Last season the defense just got better and better. After OU and OSU the defense allowed 0-17-17-7-25 and a snow balling Baylor 48. Once again with two very young quarterbacks and no running game. This despite the fact the defense seemingly never left the field.