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The only thing the Longhorns can control in the five games between bye weeks is themselves. Regardless of the opponent, Texas needs to focus on building on what worked against Sam Houston, cultivate an identity and grow on the fly.

Not sure, but I hope Texas has some interest in Myson Johnson-Cook. Athlete projected to be a RB in college.

That was a revelation. I kind of wanted every play to be reviewed.

When the dust settles on Saturday’s SEC action, including a pair of top-25 showdowns — No. 13 Ole Miss hosts No. 4 LSU in Oxford and No. 5 Georgia welcomes No. 17 Alabama to Athens — everyone will get a better feel for the conference pecking order entering October. The good news for Texas, even with an open date on the schedule, is that more football must be played before clear-cut frontrunners for SEC Championship Game berths emerge. The Longhorns, who’ve spent 36 consecutive weeks ranked in the top 10 of the Associated Press Top 25, might not get another chance to prove themselves to the rest of the country as a championship-caliber squad until Nov. 15, which will mark their third meeting with Kirby Smart’s Bulldogs in 393 days. If Texas dispatches a reeling Florida squad in Gainesville next Saturday, upends an Oklahoma club without the services of John Mateer and gets through a run of games against Kentucky, Mississippi State and Vanderbilt unscathed, it won’t move the needle nationally. Still, even if the Longhorns get the Gators’ best shot, the Sooners get Mateer back from his recent hand surgery in time for the Red River Shootout and the Wildcats, Bulldogs and Commodores prove themselves to be more formidable foes than what they appear to be on paper, it shouldn’t matter to Steve Sarkisian or anyone else inside the Moncrief Complex. With all due respect to the team’s upcoming SEC opponents, Texas must continue to look within and focus on self-improvement. Failing to embody the “being enamored us” mantra that’s driven the Longhorns to 28 wins in their last 34 games would greatly enhance the odds of Texas slipping up before the team’s second bye week (Nov. 8). Last Saturday’s 55-0 win over Sam Houston didn’t put the Longhorns in the fast lane to Atlanta in and of itself. Nevertheless, there were enough positive things that happened in the game that, if built on properly, can form an identity Texas could ride into the College Football Playoff. Specifically, the split zone RPO, which is enhanced by Arch Manning’s running ability, has the makings to be the focal point of the offense’s identity in the red zone. Instead of waiting, hoping the offensive line gets to a point where it can consistently win in short-yardage situations, the split zone RPO gives Kyle Flood’s group much-needed margin for error. DeAndre Moore Jr.’s return from injury provided a huge lift for the offense last Saturday. How much higher is the offense’s ceiling when Moore, C.J. Baxter Jr., Quintrevion Wisner and Emmett Mosley V are a part of Sarkisian’s game plan? Then there’s Pete Kwiatkowski’s defense, which has held its last five opponents to under 100 yards rushing, including Ohio State twice. The Longhorns have forced six turnovers in their last three games. The takeaways were evenly split between fumble recoveries (three) and interceptions (three), proving the defense can dominate the ball in multiple ways. Even with Anthony Hill Jr. (16 tackles, one tackle for loss and two fumble recoveries) and Colin Simmons (six tackles, 1.5 tackles for loss, 1.5 sacks and three quarterback hurries) off to slow starts, Texas is holding opponents to an SEC-leading 3.58 yards per play (No. 5 nationally in total defense, allowing 211 yards per game). The Longhorns lead the conference in scoring defense (7.8 points per game allowed, which is No. 4 in FBS) and is among the top 10 nationally against the run, the pass and on third down. Texas can't do anything about the state in which their next five opponents arrive on game day. With that said, if the Longhorns handle their business and start to establish consistency, the last three games of the regular season will look a lot less daunting than they might appear, while positioning Texas for a finish befitting a team that benefitted from early-season growing pains. View full news story

i like it you are quitting so checks quit coming

So soon-to-be former Hokie players are redshirting prior to making their portal escape? Makes perfect sense! Meanwhile, the athletic department is floundering around trying to enforce NIL deals like a toddler with a crayon. If Va. Tech thinks they’re going to enforce their will on players to escape this mess, they might want to think again. At this point, the only things heading to Virginia Tech are going to be legal bills and courtroom losses.

That was a shocker to me. I worked at UVA for about 15 years and could never get behind that team. Not many Longhorns or Longhorns fans there. I did follow the baseball team some because they were good. Interestingly, like everywhere else there were some Dallas fans, though most were Redskins/Commander fans.

I get it, when the team you root for doesn't play as well as we'd like or doesn’t win it sucks. At the same time just because it didn't happen as we expected doesn't mean it won't or can't. Sark was 8 win Sark until he won 10 games or more and made the playoffs in back to back years. There's issues that this team has to fix if they want to make the playoffs or win it all. That can be said for every team in college this year, the good thing is Texas issues are noticeable and aren't being hidden even when we face inferior opponents. Texas has an elite defense and health issues at key positions on offense that's holding them back. We've had guys like Tre, CJ, Moseley, and Moore miss time who everyone figured would be key contributors. I get the next man up, but when the next man and the man after him, and the man after him who was supposed to be a depth piece is thrust into action struggle and drop off is to be expected. We haven't run the ball anywhere near what we did against OSU because experience matters. As this team gets healthy we'll forget all about San Jose and UTEP. We just have to get to that point, no amount of stressing over past results is going to fix it. One day I'm going to wake up and be part of a fanbase that doesn't care who we face because we are TEXAS and you don't matter. I want to have what Alabama and UGA have, you think either of those teams would be worried about who they're gonna face? Nope! When they step on the grass they have a confidence about them that says we're better than you and its up to you to prove me wrong 🤣 and if they do lose it's only because they ran out of time.

Must be PTSD from the 2010s. I remember the OTF guys saying all off-season that we would treat the non-conference games (other than Ohio State) as "training" sessions for the young guys to prepare for the long haul and avoid injuries as much as possible. We'd stay vanilla. Might win by 25-30 instead of by 40-50. Well, that's what happened. Arch struggled against UTEP and the world ended. Now Mateer is a football god, and we'll be lucky to win eight games. Our own OTF guys say they'd pick the criminals if Mateer plays. It's nuts.

That's just what happens here. Anyone Texas faces with a little bit of competence is the best we'll face until the next obstacle we face. We heard all off season about how great Smith and Downs were, then we played them and they were none factors, and Smith was locked up by a true freshman. Next week we're going to face the best defense we've faced all year and the toughest environment we've played in so far until it's not. Then we're going to forget about Florida's defense and Oklahoma will become the best defense we've faced to date. Just once, I'd like to see and read how Texas takes advantage of the weaknesses of their upcoming opponent and not go into a game with tails tucked just hoping somehow Texas can eek out a win.

To put this in perspective, Mateer isn't even one of the top dual threat QBs in the SEC, to say nothing of actual passers. Green, Chambliss and Pavia are all quite a bit better than Mateer. I don't know if you'd count Aguilar as a dual threat, but he's clearly better too. Pribula is just as good if not better. Shapen and Simpson are certainly better passers. Arch will quickly surpass him. Nuss is a petter passer. I'd say Mateer is about on level with Stockton from Georgia and Reed. Not exactly Heisman quality.

Maybe. But you're not playing 1 on 1 in football. Football is the ultimate team sport, so you can't evaluate talent in a vacuum, because if ten players do the right thing and one player misses an assignment, that play is blown up or you don't get what you should have gotten out of the play. Stats are cool and all, but you have to take it game by game and opponent by opponent. Like what does player X do well and can the team they're playing take that away. If you're on the grass on Saturdays, talent is never a question. It all comes down to coaching, scheme, and what can you do when your strengths are taken away. We just witnessed it. FSU is undoubtedly more talented than Virginia, Virginia won because they had more counters and answers for what FSU sent their way.

cJ is the best young moderator hands down. Not even close. Bobby knows how to pick talent.

Does one of their names start with a C and end in a J?

Not saying any names but there's at least two mods here loves a qb that is mediocre for 75% of the game but then makes a 10 yard run🤣 Its Mateer magic

Agree 100%

It seems in giving power to the players, we've taken all the power from the schools. I've no problem with them doing any of this. You're going out of your way to red shirt, why should you get paid? The players can't have everything working in their favor, there has to be some give and take.

So what you're saying is, get their entire OL and RB to enter the portal? Lol. In all seriousness, they played really well and got up over Florida State. I still think Florida State is good, which probably makes me weird. We'll see how they go.

I'm also from MOJO!

If you’re gonna be that literal then you should know if they could do that, they would do that. Mid semester be damned…it’s big time college athletics, what am academics?

Nope

Fantastic game. Happy for UVA and it helps Texas bump up hopefully.

Is UGA rated?