Texas’ climb continues as Bears prowl in

By Steve Habel, Senior Contributing Writer

AUSTIN, Texas – It’s taken the Texas football team five weeks to climb out of the hole it created for itself in an season-opening loss the Maryland.

Some, including coach Tom Herman and many of his players, have said the results – a No. 9 ranking in the latest Associated Press poll and a genuinely upward trend – were worth that early slap in the face.

Texas (5-1, 3-0 in Big 12 play) puts its lofty ranking, its highest this late in the season since 2009, on the line on Saturday when resurgent Baylor invades Darrell K Royal-Texas Memorial Stadium for a key Big 12 Conference game.

The Longhorns, who have thrived in their “each-week-we-are-0-0” mantra, are in a good place despite the bumps, bruises and general wear and tear of the first half of the season and a brutal stretch of games that seen them play, and beat, three ranked teams over the past four weeks by a total of 41 points.

“Winning is a horrible teacher – it masks a lot of deficiencies,” Herman said. “If we would have gone down and scored in the two-minute drill in the first week (against Maryland) and won that game we still would have still had all the exact same problems that we needed to work on.”

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Fixer-Upper

Herman continued, “No team is perfect, we have a lot of areas that we can improve on. But this team has smiles on their faces when they come to work each day.”

There’s been plenty of improvement by Texas since the loss to Maryland, and Herman and his players have said the move up was partially precipitated by the setback in the season-opener.

“Yeah, we didn’t get the win, but we were a lot closer than we appeared to be,” Texas tight end Andrew Beck said. “As hard as that loss was, it was a very, very good thing for us. It gave guys specific things to work on they needed to fix before the next week.”

Texas is expecting to see the best from a Baylor squad that’s been better than expected this season.

“Baylor is a lot better,” Herman said about the Bears, who are 4-2 and 2-1 in league play. “Their quarterback (former Lake Travis standout Charlie Brewer) is a lot better and they’ve improved across the board. You would expect that from (Baylor coach) Matt Ruhle, whom we have a lot of respect for. He’s done a really good job improving that team and doing so very quickly.”

Herman said his team is not to the point where winning is an expectation.

“Winning right now is the fruit of the labor of the week of preparation, and it should be celebrated immensely, whether you’re beating Tulsa or Oklahoma, it doesn’t matter,” Herman explained. “Winning is extremely difficult.”

Bears Aim to Maul Horns’ Hopes

Baylor (4-2, 2-1 in Big 12 play) heads south on Interstate 35 on the heels of a 37-34 gutsy home win over Kansas State that moved the Bears to within two victories of bowl eligibility.

For Baylor to stay with surging Texas, it has to keep the Longhorns from hitting home-run-type plays. In the Bears 66-33 loss to Oklahoma two weeks ago, the Sooners averaged more than 40 yards on six touchdown throws while Kansas State averaged better than 47 yards on four touchdown runs.

“We just have to play better,” Baylor coach Matt Rhule said. “As dumb as that may sound, as simple as that might sound, guys have to get off blocks and make some plays. We’re not really doing that at the highest level right now.

“We blitzed the run (against Kansas State), we man-blitzed the run, we did a bunch of different things,” Ruhle added. “But it’s not any one guy, it’s not any one thing. It can be corrected, and it needs to be moving forward.”

Little Big Picture

Herman is focused on the little picture. If Texas beats Baylor, it will be bowl eligible and take another step toward its stated goal of playing for the Big 12 title in November and December, but don’t expect that situation to be brought up to the team.

“The big picture always takes care of itself when you take care of the small picture, when you take care of each week individually, each day individually, each hour, each rep individually,” Herman said. “But it would do us a disservice if we talk about the big picture a whole lot. It would be a bit counterproductive to what we are trying to do, going 0-0 into the Baylor game this week – that’s the only record that matters.”

Coming off a packed-house in Dallas for the Oklahoma win, Texas is hoping to have its stands filled with fans this Saturday. The Horns have a lot on the line with a No. 9 ranking, as the nation will now have expectations of the team once again.

Texas had no new injuries in practice this week, and Longhorns will be locked and loaded come Saturday afternoon. Freshman wide receiver Joshua Moore was held out of practice on Thursday with an illness that included a fever, but Herman said he was hopeful Moore would be ready to play.

The Longhorns and Bears meet for the 108th time when they kick off at 2:30 p.m. Saturday with Texas holding a 77-26-4 advantage over Baylor. Saturday’s meeting will be the 59th all-time played in Austin, the Longhorns own a 46-10-2 record against Baylor at home.

Texas has won three straight games against the Bears, their longest streak since winning 12 straight from 1998-2009.

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