A premature ascension into college football’s Top 10 provided a reality check, a two-game losing streak and mathematical elimination from the College Football Playoff discussion for the Texas Longhorns.
But thanks to the powerful combination of unbridled greed by conference decision-makers and an insatiable appetite for college football programming by a sports-loving public, the Longhorns (7-3) remain well-positioned to play for a Big 12 championship on Dec. 1 at AT&T Stadium in Arlington.
The biggest remaining hurdle in the Longhorns’ path occurs Saturday night in Austin (7 p.m., Longhorn Network). If Texas, the No. 15 team in the latest CFP rankings, defeats Iowa State (6-3) in front of a supportive home crowd, Texas would need only a Nov. 23 victory over Kansas, the league cellar-dweller, to have at least a 50-50 shot of becoming the “other” team in a Big 12 conference championship game that easily could do more harm than good to the league’s CFP playoff hopes.
Here’s the bottom line, based on Big 12 tiebreakers: If Texas wins its last two regular-season games, the Longhorns would play Dec. 1 for a conference championship if No. 9 West Virginia (8-1) defeats No. 6 Oklahoma (9-1) when those teams meet Nov. 23 in Morgantown, W.Va.
Even more eye-opening for Longhorns’ fans is this possibility: If West Virginia falls Saturday to Oklahoma State (5-5) in Stillwater, Okla., the Longhorns would be guaranteed a berth in the Big 12 championship game simply by beating Iowa State and Kansas. Under that scenario, Texas would wind up facing the winner of the OU-West Virginia game in Arlington.
The back door to a conference title remains open for the Longhorns because Big 12 officials no longer determine their league champion by simply crowning the top finisher in their round-robin playing schedule. Instead, the top two finishers play for the title in a cash-grab contest that generates $3 million per league member to stage a neutral-site rematch of a regular-season contest.
This season, that loophole is allowing Texas to remain in contention for the school’s first Big 12 football title in nine years. But there will be no jumping through that loophole, defensive coordinator Todd Orlando stressed earlier this week, unless the Longhorns improve on a porous defense that has allowed 38 points and 558.3 yards per game in its last three contests against Oklahoma State, West Virginia and Texas Tech.
Those digits are well above Texas’ season averages for points (27.5) and yards allowed (420.1), a fact that deeply bothers Orlando as the team prepares to play its final home game of the season against ISU. During his weekly news conference, Orlando stressed a need for better tackling across the board.
“We’ve got to get that cleaned up. That’s an indictment on myself as a coach and everybody that was on the field,” said Orlando, who received the blessing of head coach Tom Herman to alter the team’s typical Tuesday practice and make it an additional day of full-pads workouts to stress proper tackling techniques. “Your right of passage to get on the field in this defense is you’d better be a tough guy. But I’ve thought technically, we’ve been poor (in recent games). We weren’t running through guys. We were catching guys, and that’s not us. It’s disappointing.”
A mitigating factor in recent weeks has been a diminishing number of able-bodied Longhorns on the field. During last week’s 41-34 victory over Texas Tech, the Red Raiders scored 24 fourth-quarter points against a Texas defense that played most of the second half without five starters: DE Marqez Bimage (dislocated shoulder), CB Davante Davis (bruised knee, strained ankle), DB Josh Thompson (ankle), S Brandon Jones (ankle) and S Caden Sterns (concussion). In addition, DE Breckyn Hager (dislocated radius) and S P.J. Locke (toe) saw limited time because of injuries.
For Texas, most of the ailments have surfaced since the Longhorns limited Baylor to 328 yards in a 23-17 victory Oct. 13. After that contest, the 20th under Orlando as the Horns’ DC, the only team to top the 500-yard mark against Texas had been Oklahoma. The Sooners did so last season (517) and again this season (532), when Texas prevailed in a 48-45 shootout Oct. 6.
But in the past three weeks, the Horns have allowed more than 500 yards in losses to Oklahoma State (502) and West Virginia (578), as well as 595 in last week’s win over Tech. Particularly troubling for Orlando has been opponents’ production on the ground in the two losses: 181 yards by OSU in the Cowboys’ 38-35 victory, followed by 232 rushing yards allowed in a 42-41 loss to West Virginia.
“I look at that and I say, ‘That is my job … to make these guys more gap-sound, more physical,’” Orlando said. “But the reality is, we’ve made people one-dimensional in the past. When you don’t make people one-dimensional and they can run the football, it opens everything else.”
Texas’ defense will benefit from the first-half absence of Iowa State tailback David Montgomery, one of the league’s leading rushers. Montgomery is suspended until the second half for fighting in last week’s game against Baylor.
That figures to shift more burden of proof to a Texas secondary that has allowed 276.2 passing yards per contest, ranking 117th among the nation’s 129 FBS teams. Texas has surrendered more than 300 passing yards in each of its last three games, including 454 to a Tech team led by backup quarterback Jett Duffey.
Herman stressed that he is not as concerned about Texas’ declining defensive numbers as fans or media members because the dip has overlapped the tail end of a five-game stretch that included matchups against high-powered offenses from Oklahoma, Baylor, Oklahoma State, West Virginia and Texas Tech.
“We understand that as good of a plan that we have on defense, as good as the players are that we have on defense, this stretch of five games has been a murder’s row of elite offenses,” Herman said. “Not just in this league, but in the country. Our defense, the last couple (of games) especially, has been really, really banged up. We weren’t going to win the last few games 17-14. Just wasn’t going to happen. That’s something our offense understands very early in the week.”
Against Iowa State, which enters with a five-game winning streak under freshman quarterback Brock Purdy, Longhorns’ defenders won’t get much of a break from what they have seen in recent weeks.
“Their whole offense, together, is a pretty good offense,” Texas linebacker Anthony Wheeler said. “(Purdy) is a big pump-fake guy. He does a lot to make you get off your feet.”
But if the Longhorns can keep him contained, they’ll be one step closer to a possible (probable?) opportunity to play for a Big 12 championship at the end of the season. That goal seemed laughable following a 34-29 loss to Maryland to open the season, but it is something Herman and his players have grown to embrace … even as the defensive statistics have declined.
“It doesn’t bother me,” Herman said of the recent defensive struggles. “I like winning. We’re going to win the game the way the game needs to be won. We’re still not where we want to be … We’re light years ahead of where we were, but the bar was set pretty low.”
