Texas was a better team in 2014

Texas was a better team in 2014.

I don’t know by how much, and I’m not sure it will be true by season’s end, but it’s true right now. The problem is that some people — mostly outsiders but also some Texas fans — think that because this team is in worse shape, the program is also in worse shape. They hear simple-minded factoids devoid of context like “worst start since 1956” and take that to mean the program is going the wrong direction.

First, let’s get this straight: The gap between 2014 Texas and 2015 Texas might not be very wide. The Longhorns are 2-4 right now; they were 2-4 last year. They had a comfortable win over a C-USA team (North Texas), two losses to ranked teams in games that could have gone either way (UCLA and Oklahoma), and two big losses where their only offensive points came in garbage time (BYU and Baylor). Sound familiar?

The teams that beat Texas this year are better than the teams that did it last year. The 2014 losses came to teams with a combined record of 19-5, whereas this season the combined record is 22-2. But more than that, Texas’ second win this season is much better than its 23-0 victory over Kansas last year — or any other win from last year.

But it’s not unreasonable to think Texas is worse this year. At least the defense was good, right?

The thing about that is the 2014 defense was top heavy; it was loaded with talented seniors. Programs aren’t rebuilt around seniors because seniors graduate, and college graduates can’t play college football.

The defense was going to take a step back. Seniors had to be replaced, and most of the replacements who were already on the team were so lacking in talent that they’ve been replaced by their own replacements. And the nice thing about the replacements’ replacements is that they’re pass-rushing hellcats and lockdown corners — and freshmen. They’re the kinds of players who become foundation pieces for programs. The defensive line needs an infusion of talent, but fortunately that’s also the only defensive unit that had some talent left over after the seniors (and Malcom Brown) left.

So there are some exciting young players on defense. They’ve got nothing on the offense.

Name the best player at each position group in 2014.

Nevermind, I’ll do it for you:

Quarterback: Tyrone Swoopes (retired players and players who have never played aren’t an option)

Running back: Malcolm Brown (or pick Johnathan Gray, I don’t care)

Wide Receiver: John Harris (or pick Jaxon Shipley, I don’t care)

Offensive line: Kent Perkins

The quarterback has been replaced and upgraded with a newer model. Running back has as well (let’s not debate D’Onta Foreman vs. Gray), and there are still three promising freshmen we know nothing about. The best receiver is a freshman. The best lineman is a freshman (the second-best is still probably Perkins, but the third-best is another freshman).

Freshmen, unlike seniors, will be on the team next year. Most of their physical and technical growth is still ahead of them. They are building blocks, and those are things 2014 Texas didn’t have.

So yes, Texas was probably a better team in 2014, but it’s a better program in 2015. It has a mix of things it didn’t have last year (a quarterback, a left tackle, a big receiver with track speed) or things it had but lost to graduation (a near-shutdown corner, an instinctive and freakishly athletic linebacker). If you looked hard enough you could find players from the 2014 squad whose futures you were excited about — Jason Hall, Poona Ford, Armanti Foreman, Naashon Hughes. This year that task takes a lot less time and more than two hands to count them all.

Charlie Strong is trying to get a fire burning again. When he came to Austin, there were a few logs still smoldering (the seniors and Malcom Brown) and nothing else. This season, the logs have burned to ash, and Strong has been tossing in anything within reach that will burn (the juniors and seniors). He’s trying to keep the flames alive long enough to gather and chop more firewood (the freshmen and sophomores). It was inevitable that the fire would dim in 2015, but because of what Strong is doing now, it will burn bright soon.