Welcome back to our (potentially) weekly column on all things Texas Longhorns. Which is to say, whatever “Longhorn Nation” is talking about this week through the lens of a guy in Austin with little affiliation with the University of Texas.
Well, it happened. Texas started Casey Thompson at quarterback and, voila! The defense allowed zero points.
Yes, yes, the offense looked sensational. The Longhorns recorded 10.0 yards per play. But then again: Thompson didn’t really…do much? The guy only had to throw 18 passes. The running game did the heavy lifting. And while sure, you could argue Thompson had something to do with that, this idea that a sizable win over a nearby mid-major means Texas is suddenly great is even more flawed than it was last time, which was just two weeks ago.
Two weeks ago!
For those tracking at home, the Backometer™ has gone from 90 to zero to 75 over the last sixteen days. Texas fans are expecting to make the Big 12 Championship. Texas fans are expecting to give Oklahoma a game. Texas fans are expecting these things because they won a game by 58 points. Against Rice.
Our Backometer™ forecast expects the vibe to surge higher this weekend. Thompson will be under center once more. Texas opened as a thirteen-point favorite against Texas Tech. The line has since shrunk by a loud four and a half points, but Texas should win on Saturday, and if Arkansas gives a “top ten” Texas A&M team a ride, the arguments write themselves: Arkansas’s a playoff contender. We were still playing Hudson Card.
Looking further ahead, the Backometer™ sees a good chance the Longhorns suffer a devastating loss in Fort Worth and enter the Red River Shootout 3-2, just .500 in conference, with a best win over a team whose offense had headaches against Stephen F. Austin at home.
But that’s getting ahead of ourselves. The important thing is, Texas looked great on Saturday.
We’re not cheering against Texas over here at Bevo’s Fake Nuts. We wouldn’t mind the Horns legitimately being Back. It’s the rollercoaster that amuses us, and while all fanbases do it, Texas’s does it as such a sport that it’s a delight to observe from nearby. Yeah, go ahead, feel like you’re a lot better than Rice. You’re clearly a lot better than Rice. Congratulations on that. But the reasonable response isn’t, “This offense is spectacular with Casey Thompson under center as evidenced by him looking better than Hudson Card once Arkansas had the game in hand and him successfully handing the ball off a lot against Rice.” It’s, “Well, at least we can still beat the crap out of Rice.”
Texas Tech has yet to play anyone all that good—their best opponent so far was quite likely Houston in Houston—but they do, for whatever it’s worth, have the tenth-best run defense in the country by yards per attempt so far. Tech might make Casey Thompson throw it. Let’s see what Texas looks like then.
