Habe on the Horns: Texas is a flip of the coin from week to week

By Steve Habel/Senior Editor

The most maddening thing about the Texas football team is the absolute inability for anyone — even its coach — to predict which team will show up from game  to game.

The “good” Longhorns were evident in wins against Oklahoma and Kansas State, while the “bad” ones have reared their ugly heads in definitive and embarrassing losses to Notre Dame, TCU and — in the most perplexing showing of all — a 24-0 whitewashing Saturday at Iowa State.

“We need to be the team that played the way it did against [s2If current_user_can(access_s2member_level2)] Oklahoma, with a chip on its shoulder and confidence and focus and determination,” Texas coach Charlie Strong said Monday at his weekly press conference.

“The past two weeks (before Saturday’s loss), we were taking steps ahead and the team’s progress has been built up, and maybe we took that too seriously and didn’t focus and execute against Iowa State. We need to understand that we gave a lot of work to get done.”

That might be the understatement of the season. UT’s inability to bring a consistent effort to the field each game — there are just 12 or 13 per season, folks — and the coaching staff’s inability to define the expectations born from attention to detail, and to take nothing less, continues to hamper the quest for real improvement.

There’s no way any Texas team, even one rebuilding and without a true leader at quarterback, should be shut out by anyone, much less by Iowa State.

Freshman Texas linebacker Malik Jefferson said Monday that the tone in the Texas locker room following the game was somber. “Things were very silent,” he said.

Senior linebacker Peter Jinkens said he was angry about the results in Ames and expects his teammates to be upset about the way in which the team played.

“If you’re not angry after that game,” Jinkens said, “then I don’t want you on the field with me.”

Strong refused to call the loss in Ames an embarrassment because, he said, his team played hard. He also defended the play-calling by offensive play caller Jay Norvell, saying that there were openings for both Texas quarterbacks (Jerrod Heard and Tyrone Swoopes) in the passing game.

“It was more about not executing and not being able to take advantage of some of the opportunities that we were given in the game,” Strong said. “People want to point fingers at the play-calling, but we had our chances to make some things happen and didn’t.”

Other items gleaned from the Texas press conference included:

The Longhorns endured a hairy return flight to Austin after the game Saturday, and Jefferson said that turbulence near the midway portion of the route had him hugging the seat in front of him and holding on for dear life.

“And we thought the worst was over when we left Ames,” Jefferson said.

The kickoff time for Texas’ game Nov. 14 at West Virginia has been chosen for the six-day television window, meaning when the game will be played won’t know until next Monday.

Texas, which never has lost at home to Kansas, opened as a 31.5-point favorite over the Jayhawks for the teams’ game Nov. 7. The Jayhawks are 0-8 overall and 0-5 in conference play.

[/s2If] [s2If !current_user_can(access_s2member_level2)] [article-offer] [/s2If]