By Steve Habel
Senior Contributing Writer
AUSTIN, Texas — Texas has to beat Baylor and then defeat Texas Tech at home on Black Friday to consider the 2019 season anything but a huge step in the wrong direction. That’s the hard facts, even with the Longhorns’ close losses, all of the injuries, and the overall lack of consistent defense.
Winning Saturday against the No. 14 Bears will not be an easy task, but it’s doable if the Longhorns put together an “A-minus” effort against Baylor’s solid “B.” But Baylor head coach Matt Rhule’s Bears are not going to give an inch, and Texas had better be ready to scrap for every yard, for every pass, for every “1-0 matchup” Saturday at McLane Stadium.
“The thing that we have stressed to (our players) is that you’re not ever going to be defined by when you get knocked down,” Texas coach Tom Herman said. [s2If current_user_can(access_s2member_level2)] “You’re always going to be defined by how you get back up when you get knocked down. This will be a good challenge for us to see what we’re made of in terms of responding to being knocked down.”
Expect Texas (6-4, 4-3 Big 12) to get knocked down plenty come Saturday afternoon on the north bank of the Brazos River.
But the Longhorns have been felled before and have staggered to their, uh, hooves, most recently last week in Ames, when they rallied to take a 21-20 lead with 6 minutes to play before Iowa State countered with a last-snap, game-winning field goal to beat Texas.
The problem remains that the Longhorns’ team we’ve seen this season look like a shell of the one we expected to see after Texas beat Georgia in the Allstate Sugar Bowl on New Year’s Night in the Big Easy.
This team has struggled to play as physical as its opponents – an aspect that no one thought could happen, even as late as the week before the loss to Oklahoma on the second Saturday in October.
“We haven’t coached (the physical nature of this team) well enough,” Herman said. “I do think there was a time when we were very, very banged up, and, again, not an excuse, but you’re asking for reasons, and I’m trying to give you the best ones that I can. Even getting some of these guys back – they’re playing hurt, and they’re playing through a lot of stuff, and I commend them for that, but you hit the nail on the head.
“We have not played to the level of physicality consistently. That is our expectation, and that’s our job to coach it better.”
Yes, the Bears have been licking their collective wounds in the aftermath of the up-so-high-then-down-so-low setback to Oklahoma, but Rhule said that there were plenty of positives for his team even in defeat.
“Our team learned a lot from that game,” Rhule explained. “They learned, No. 1, what we can be — for the first half we looked like not just a top-10, but a top-five team in the country. Then secondly the second half showed us what we still have to do.”
The Bears are tied for first place in the Big 12 with two games remaining and with a win Saturday or in their finale at Kansas can clinch a spot — and a rematch against the Sooners– in the Big 12 championship game on Dec. 7.
“My attention and our guys’ attention when we got here yesterday is completely on Texas,” Rhule said. “It’s Senior Day for a very special group of young men that have really, really acted and lead their lives on blind faith, believing in what we could be. I know they’re excited.”
And so it comes down to this – if Texas gets pushed around the field on Saturday by Baylor (9-1, 6-1 in Big 12) then there will be a real problem, if there isn’t already. The Longhorns are far from “back” unless winning nine games, which can only occur if Texas wins its final two games and the bowl game.
And that’s the truth.
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