Longhorns’ Football Wish List is a Lengthy One | Horns Illustrated

Habe on the Horns – By Steve Habel/Senior Editor

Now that the 2014 football season is officially in the record books and Ohio State is the first national champion of the college playoff era, it’s time to determine how Texas Longhorns’ Football can eventually join the ranks of the haves instead of the have nots in a sport the Longhorns used to dominate.

You might have noticed [s2If current_user_can(access_s2member_level2)]that the Buckeyes won the title against Oregon with a stifling defense and an offense that pounded the ball between the tackles and was daring and opportunistic with the pass, just the kind of double-sided attack that Charlie Strong is trying to build on the 40 Acres.

According to the Nielsen ratings, you did pay attention as more than 33 million viewers watched the inaugural playoff era championship game on ESPN, the biggest audience in the history of cable television.

The Ohio State’s offense was triggered by a third-string quarterback (redshirt sophomore Cardell Jones) whose basic physical attributes (6-foot-5, 246 pounds) were comparable to those of the Longhorns’ starting quarterback Tyrone Swoopes, who goes at 6-foot-4, 243 pounds.

But the comparison ends there. Jones, despite playing very little meaningful football until the first weekend of December, when Ohio State starter J.T. Barrett suffered a season-ending injury, looked like he was fully in control of the Buckeye offense against the noted stout defenses of Wisconsin (in the Big 10 championship game), Alabama (in the playoff semifinal) and, ultimately, Oregon.

Swoopes struggled, and failed, against the likes of BYU, Kansas State, Baylor, TCU and Arkansas, all teams that played in bowl games.

The Longhorns’ wish list for the offseason begins at the quarterback position. Texas needs for Swoopes to develop into a signal caller who can manage the offense, not give away possessions with indecisiveness and not hand its opponents points via turnovers.

Getting a big play now and then from its quarterbacks would be nice, too, especially since the Longhorns will head to 2015 with a revamped (again) offensive line, an unproven (at best) corps of wide receivers being tutored by a new (and yet to be determined) assistant coach and no proven running backs other than senior Johnathan Gray.

Also on the offensive wish list is a meaningful contribution from the tight end position. Remember when Texas trotted out a succession of great tight ends from Bo Scaife to David Thomas to Jermichael Finley, each of whom played in the NFL?

Defensively, all the Longhorns need to do is replace six of its top seven tacklers from 2014 including linebacker Jordan Hicks, cornerback Quandre Diggs and defensive tackle Malcolm Brown, the team’s three unquestioned leaders.

In all, the Longhorns will return just 13 players of the 24 (including placekicker and punter) who started against Arkansas but based on the way the Razorbacks dominated Texas in a 31-7 thrashing in the AdvoCare 100 Texas Bowl, that might not be such a bad thing. The bowl loss, and much of the season before it, showed that the Longhorns have a long way to go to regain an upper perch on the college football hierarchy.

But there are signs that Strong and his staff are making inroads in recruiting and have moved into the top 20 nationally in that very important team-building category. At this point, any move forward is a positive one.

Oh, and by the way, your faithful senior editor (that’s me) was the only one of the seven media members polled prior to the season to predict an Ohio State-Oregon matchup in the national championship game, an Ohio State title and a Heisman Trophy for the Ducks’ Marcus Mariota.

I also said Oklahoma would win the Big 12 (it was actually a tie between Baylor and TCU), that Baylor’s Bryce Petty would be the conference player of the year (that went to TCU’s Trevone Boykin), that the Horned Frogs’ Devonte Fields would be the league defensive player of the year (he never played a down for TCU and transferred to Trinity Valley Community College after being kicked out of school before the season began) and Texas Tech to be the Big 12’s most underrated team.

Hey, you win some, you lose some.

Just sayin, ya know?

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