So, I’ve been watching football for 20 of my 26 years of life. It wasn’t until 2018–19 that I really, really started to dissect the game. After the first two weeks, and after hearing so many takes from around the country, here are 2 of mine.
1. TEAMS ARE WHO THEY ARE WEEK TO WEEK
Michigan went from barely beating WMU to beating a stout Oklahoma team. So what do you take away from that? Well, is Michigan now a top-12 team? I’d say no.
I was listening to Nick Saban on Saturday when he said that a team can always get better or worse week by week. It really got me thinking, about an hour before kickoff, that Michigan would step up to the moment, even with plenty of flaws.
The same can be said about Oregon, Oklahoma, and LSU this weekend. I expect them to respond this week. Two of those teams will have FCS- or G6-level competition, but the one that has to improve more than anyone is LSU, with Lane returning to Oxford.
Oklahoma will have a get-right game before traveling to Athens to open SEC play, and Oregon will host Portland State before heading to the Coliseum.
On the other side of losing, how perfectly did these games play out for some of the winners? Oklahoma State was a preseason favorite to run the table in the Big 12, but after losing to Tulsa in Week 1 in arguably one of the biggest upsets of the week, people nationally sold that team’s stock hard. Now they looked very different in their home opener against No. 6 Oregon, almost feels like they got to reset the narrative for themselves.
Michigan looked like the more competent football team and stepped up in the moment, even though Oklahoma came into the Big House as a heavy favorite. And Texas answered the criticism we’ve heard for almost two years: that Sark can’t win the big one.
I say all that to get to my main point: never count out any team based on one week’s performance, and stay on your toes.
2. DON’T LINGER ON THIS WIN TOO LONG
I understand what this win means for this team. They learned a lot about themselves, about each other, and most of all, they got that monkey off their back. It really will speak volumes for this season, especially with a gauntlet of a schedule ahead.
As much as I enjoyed the win on Saturday and Sunday, I’ve been seeing plenty of edits and posts about our Longhorns, and it almost seems like everyone is ready to hand over the trophy already.
It reminded me of two things.
First, an old Reebok commercial my old coach Matt Gustafson showed me about Emmitt Smith. Even after winning it all, he took two seconds to breathe and got right back to work.
Second, I’ve seen teams like my Spurs celebrate beating the Thunder so hard that the bigger challenge hits before they’ve had time to reset.
Now, I’m not saying that’s going to happen to our Horns, but as a fanbase, we do need to keep our emotions in check and give this team the right kind of energy.
That’s why I was glad to hear on Monday that Sark coached hard and showed the Kobe moment: “Job’s not finished.” It shows that although large parts of the country are happy with this team finally answering the call and living up to being the No. 1 team, the team itself is ready to clean up the mistakes that could’ve cost them the game.
I expect them to get that cleaned up before they travel to Neyland to open SEC play.
- Marcos Mauricio
