From Espn's Pat Forde

centexorange

centexorange

1,000+ Posts
6. Texas' streak of seven straight seasons with at least 10 wins will end.
The Longhorns don't lack talent, but they drew a killer Big 12 schedule: three 2007 bowl teams from the North division (Colorado, Missouri and Kansas), and they'll play two of those teams on the road. And in addition to facing Oklahoma at the Cotton Bowl in Dallas, they must face trendy breakout pick Texas Tech in Lubbock. Burnt orange fans are encouraged to beat the rush and start criticizing offensive coordinator Greg Davis now.
 
He doesn't believe it's going to receive the death penalty. He believes it should.

But thinking Texas won't win 10 games in '08, just as thinking USC deserves the death penalty, is an opinion. It's not a statement of fact, and I don't think it's meant to persuade anyone. Texas fans better get used to the idea of being the underdog going into this year, maybe even throughout conference play. I disagree with the entire premise, since we hear the same thing every year about Tech, about Missouri (or the other Big 12 North team du jour), about Oklahoma, etc., and Texas still manages to win their 10 games, but certainly I recognize that this team has a lot of unknown quantities. And many of these writers have been waiting years to be able to say "Texas just isn't going to be that good this season," and this sounds like the year that it might actually come to fruition, so they're all going to start piling on now, thinking it's better to come up with egg on their faces later on than to be "that guy" who always has Texas in his top 10 preseason.

Frankly, I love all the negative stuff. I don't remember the last time that so many people were predicting Texas would have a "bad" season. And I think this is just what the players need to wake themselves up and realize that it takes more than just wearing burnt orange uniforms to be a good football team. I don't think, I know that Will Muschamp will have his players ready to make some heads rattle. And he has the athletes to put together one of the best defenses in America. Inexperienced, sure. But talent and good coaching can overcome that. The only question in my mind is whether or not Colt McCoy is going to be the fearless Colt we saw in '06 or the timid Colt we saw in '07. If we get the right Colt McCoy on the field and learn how to incorporate John Chiles in some other fashion when he's not playing QB, we'll be fine on offense. I think the passing game will be about the same as it always is, in terms of quality of receivers (still have Quan and Ship, plus a bunch of great younger guys), and if this offensive line turns out to what everyone says it is, the running game will come along fine as well.

So in short, everyone just needs to chill, and take all this prognosticating for what it is.
 
I'm sorry, but I just don't see the difficulty that everyone else sees in this schedule. Only 5 games are on the road, and 1 of those 5 is the OU game, so that doesn't really count anyway. Texas gets the best Big 12 North team in Austin. The toughest road game of the year is Texas Tech in Lubbock, which happens every other year. I just think people are making too big a deal out of it. If the Horns can't get at least 9 wins from those 12 games (plus another in the bowl game), then it's because we're not that good. It's not because of the schedule.
 
I agree with bassale. I think this negative media is exactly what the team needs to hear. I know we weren't dogs in the Holiday Bowl, but lets face it...there were a lot of people who thought we were going to lose that game. I think this, along with the 6 am workouts and NOS's, really changed the attitude of the team. I hope we come into this season with a huge chip on our shoulder and play like we have something to prove.

hookem.gif
 
Who knows what might happen, but if we won 10 games last year with a young team and Duane Akina "coordinating" our defense, I'm not overly concerned about this year, given that we return a considerable amount of experienced talent and Will Muschamp has taken over the DC role.
 
to be honest, it is getting really really old reading all this ******** on here and in the national media expecting 4-5 losses. I realize we lost key starters, but the young talent on this team is incredible right now, we have 2 phenomenal new coaches, and many changes will take place. Who's to say these changes will result in a dissappointing year!? The idiots in the press don't know, nor do any of us. Mack, Muschamp, and Major (3M) will have this team in the best position possible. And that position will lead to at least 10 wins, because, Pat Forde be damned, We're still Texas, and we pull this **** off every year.
hookem.gif
 
The way I see it, we should win the following 7 games without excuses:

Florida Atlantic (Home)
UTEP (Away)
Arkansas (Home)
Rice (Home)
Oklahoma St (Home)
Baylor (Home)
ATM (Home)

That leaves:

at Colorado - A team I'm not the least bit sold on.
OU - Not a good recent track record; however, the underdog has had its say.
Missouri - Tough game but we're at home.
at Tech - Scary game -- especially as it will probably be at night.
at Kansas - Again, I'm not sold on this team just yet.
Bowl Game - Which if we've gone 2-3 against the latter 5 means that it will probably be against an average opponent.

Going 3-3 should not be too much to ask for this team.
 
I think it's just the trendy thing to do. Pick Texas to not win 10 games in '08. But if you actually asked some of those people to run down the schedule and point out the 3+ games Texas will lose, most of them wouldn't be able to do it with any degree of certainty at all.

Most of them would pick Oklahoma because that's the obvious choice, even though that game is by no means in the bag for the Sooners. Most of them would pick Texas Tech because, again, it's trendy, even though Texas soundly beat this exact same team last year. The rest of them who have some sort of real knowledge about college football might say that one to two more losses could come from the Missouri/Kansas/A&M triumvirate because that's an easy play to call. Missouri is very talented, Kansas is coming off the best year in the history of their program without losing a lot of personnel, and A&M has beaten Texas twice in a row, returns most of their playmakers on offense, and has a new, presumably competent coach. They're willing to overlook the fact that neither Missouri nor Kansas played a tough schedule last year and that A&M lost their entire offensive line and has no depth whatsoever on defense.

The complete idiots (i.e. Matt Hayes) will toss in Colorado and Arkansas as games Texas is likely to lose and predict that the Horns will struggle to win 7 games, much less 10.

I think Texas could just as easily have 10 wins before we even get to the bowl game as they could have 3 or 4 losses. So I'm fine with everyone making these predictions of only 8 or 9 wins. This will be like when ESPN asked if USC was greater than the '95 Huskers and '01 Hurricanes. They failed to ask whether or not they were better than the '05 Longhorns. But they got their answer anyway.
 
The absolute worse thing that could happen to Tech is all the bs team of the minute attention they're getting. I have to think our new DC has a cure for that big head syndrome. Colorado? Hold me, I'm shaking.
 
because it is pertinent to both the record streak of 7 straight seasons that is gaining more and more attention on the national scene (see topic of Forde's entry above). It is double digit wins, and a great way measure yearly success.

The fact that you ask that question is very land-thieverish. As a football fan (am I going out on a limb here?), you should know the answer to that question without going to a Longhorn message board to act condescending.

BTW, it's something your boys failed to do as recently as 2005.
 
Playing at CU and Kansas will be tough this year given KU turn and glimpses of CU's as well. The fans will be there and be loud for the Texas game.
 
The fans are there and are loud for EVERY Texas game. This is not something new. When Texas comes to town, everyone and their dog is at the stadium drooling. Kansas seeing Texas on the home schedule is like us seeing Ohio State or Notre Dame or USC on the home schedule. It's as big as it gets. We should be proud of that instead of being scared of it.
 
I agree w/ much of what bassale said. I like that folks are doubting the Horns. Maybe for once we'll come out swinging from game one instead of needing a mid season loss/slump to fire us up for the November slate.

I think our two toughest games will be OU and Tech but both are very winnable.

This is going to be an interesting season in the BXII....I'm all kinds of fired up for it.
hookem.gif
 
11-2. Book it. We have have managed to continue our 10 game winning streak despite having no pass rush and pass defenses ranked in the stratosphere
 
semi-impressive? SEMI-IMPRESSIVE???

Wow, just wow. Some of you people really need to remember the 80's & 90's.

Yea, no second NC, since what, 2 years ago? What a loser this Mack Brown is..........give me a break.
 
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