Cash for clunkers

We'll find out soon if Texas' narrow win over Houston was part of the journey or an omen of things to come.

The worst part about an ugly win isn’t the unattractiveness of the victory itself, but the confusion that emerges in the aftermath of escaping defeat. Contenders win ugly, but pretenders do too and after a gross win it’s hard to tell which one your team is. When Texas jumped out to an early 21-0 lead on the Houston Cougars last Saturday, Longhorn fans got the bloodthirsty and vengeful Texas team they wanted following the heartbreaking Red River Shootout - at least for a little while. But rather than unleashing their pent-up aggression for the entire four quarters that followed the loss and the bye week, Steve Sarkisian’s squad finished the game looking more like the 2021 team that constantly coughed away double-digit leads before finding frustrating ways to lose down the stretch. In the end, the Longhorns limped out of Houston with just a seven-point victory that required a fourth down stop in the redzone with a minute left. And to add injury to insult, they’ve lost Quinn Ewers to a shoulder injury again, possibly for the rest of the season. I still don’t know why the trimmed down Quinn Ewers decided to continue to workshop the Earl Campbell impression that he debuted against Oklahoma to disastrous results and now his legacy at Texas might always have a shot of “what could’ve been” dropped into the glass. But in Ewers’ absence, backup Maalik Murphy led a game-winning drive and the defense got the stop they needed, even if luck was involved. Murphy and/or Arch Manning will have to grow up quick the rest of the season if Ewers is out for an extended period of time. At the end of the day, the Longhorns won bloody, battered, and ugly and therein lies the confusion: I have no idea what to believe about this team now.

You can spin ugly victories in more ways than a Harlem Globetrotter and they bring out opinions from every corner of your team’s fanbase. After an ugly victory you’ll meet the eternal optimist who reminds everyone that a win is a win and that all wins count the same. You’ll meet Chicken Little, who uses the worst parts about the game to confirm whatever fears they’ve been shouting all season. You’ll meet Judas Iscariot who turns on the team, the coaches, and the players as a method of self-preservation to protect themselves from future trials and tribulations that might be coming for their team. You’ll meet the grownup version of the kid on Christmas who asked if there are more presents hidden somewhere and is never satisfied, even if their team wins 77-0.  Close wins are for losers. You’ll meet the Know-It-All who claims he’s been trying to tell you there were cracks in the foundation for months but is unable to produce receipts confirming when he voiced those concerns. You’ll meet the angst filled cowboys alone on Brokeback Mountain who are pushed to the brink of cardiac arrest in a stress-filled game like Saturday’s and in the fog of near defeat tell their favorite team that they “wish I knew how to quit you.”

Who am I? I’m all of them. In the past few days I’ve told a friend “we don’t win that game last year,” while telling another, “Tom Herman won a bunch of close games too,” aka we’re screwed. Now I’ll try to take a few steps back from those various tortured souls and identify which team Texas is, a contender or pretender.

The college football podcast Solid Verbal has a mantra directed at the sports’ contenders that they must “win your clunkers.” Clunkers – ugly games where a superior team sleepwalks, looks to be in trouble, yet survives. But clunkers happen to all contenders and all that matters is that you win them. The concerning thing is that it’s hard to separate a clunker from an “oh shit” game which exposes your teams’ fatal flaws. The line between a clunker and an “oh shit” game full of bad omens is incredibly thin. Contenders win their clunkers, while pretenders’ wins are filled with bad omens that will be their undoing in a few weeks time.

Saturday saw Texas jump out to a 21-0 lead in dominating fashion on the backs of multiple playmakers like Xavier Worthy, Adonai Mitchell, and Savion Red, which is something that contenders do. It also saw the Longhorns win with depth after losing Quinn Ewers and Ethan Burke and not having defensive starters Jalen Catalon and Ryan Watts - also something that contenders do. When Houston tied the ballgame at 21, Texas scored the next two times it had the ball and dominated the Cougars in the trenches down the stretch - something contenders do.  When Texas needed a stop, Jahdae Barron helped get one - something contenders do - questionable spots and play calls be damned.

Steve Sarkisian didn’t have a four-quarter game plan for the Cougars and once again seemed to rely on his opening script to be enough, which is something pretenders do. Blowing huge leads makes your slight young quarterback try to doo too much then imitate Sam Ehlinger in the open field against a defender almost twice his size - something pretenders do. Sark also allowed another special-teams play that was full of ill-timed aggression to occur when he let Jeff Banks call a fake field goal pass on 4^th and 6 to Bert Auburn when the Longhorns were up 21-7 - something pretenders do. Defensive coordinator Pete Kwiatkowski played out of fear of UH Donovan Smith beating him for a second time and didn’t attack a less talented opponent while resting on his laurels with a defensive rotation so vast it might’ve offered my mom a shift at cornerback - something pretenders do. The players made plays when the game was on the line - something contenders do, but the coaches made it harder on the players than it should’ve been - something pretenders do.

Houston was supposed to be the easiest game left on the Longhorns schedule and they barely came out of it alive. BYU and Kansas State are at home in the next two weeks and are both better coached teams than Houston. The Longhorns narrow victory showed that getting to Arlington won’t be an easy task. So, was the ugly win over Houston just a clunker or an “oh shit” game? I’m scared to know the answer, but we’ll find out soon enough.