Part One: To Higher Things
By beating Kansas State, Texas has put themselves in a position to grab the brass ring today, not tomorrow, not next season, now.
It feels good to finally get a monkey off your back.1
And that’s exactly what Texas did last Saturday night in Manhattan when they defeated Kansas State. The Longhorns got their second true road win in the Steve Sarkisian era by beating the #13 ranked Wildcats in front of their raucous home crowd. It was Sark’s signature victory to date and more importantly, the win allowed the Longhorns to control their own destiny in the Big 12 Title race. I’ve heard reports that because Texas was beating the Wildcats so bad at halftime that Bill Snyder had to be restrained by security after he violently challenged Chris Klieman to a “loser leaves town” match. Some dictators never want to give up power. But, back to the first half, Quinn Ewers and Xavier Worthy were telepathically connected in the red zone, Bijan Robinson was running wild and the Texas defense (led by Jaylan Ford) was holding the mighty Deuce Vaughn in check. It was a beautiful performance and nothing interesting happened in the second half, which brings us to TCU.
In reality, I now regret putting a TV in my backyard when I built my deck last Spring. There’s nothing as painful as watching someone you care about making the same mistake again and that’s what the second half felt like. After my second half performance, I’m now persona non grata in my neighborhood. I hear there’s actually a petition going around to forcibly raise my property taxes to get me to move. The 200 post NextDoor thread about my screams and obscenities featured gems like:
“Is someone’s loved one dying in front of them?”
“My toddler has learned three new words, not the good kinds! And my Golden-Doodle is terrified by this constant yelling. This is worse than fireworks on New Year’s Eve.”
“Why does this guy keep screaming for someone named Steve to let Jordan eat? Is there a hunger strike happening at 2*** ******* *** Drive?”
Yep, the second half bugaboos reared their ugly heads again. The Longhorns only scored three points in the final two quarters and with 2:30 seconds left, the Wildcats and Adrian Martinez got the ball with a chance to send the game into overtime. A Xavier Worthy fumble, multiple drive stalling pre-snap penalties and several defensive lapses had led the Longhorns standing at the doorstep of another collapse.
It’s really freaking hard to get a monkey off your back, especially when it’s latched on there with its nails dug into your skin. What people don’t tell you about forcible primate removal is that sometimes you might lose an ear in the process and your nose will be gushing blood, also you’ll have to wear an eyepatch for the rest of your life. But hey, if in the end the monkey is dead and gone, then it was worth it.
Texas 34, Kansas State 27.
Even though the Longhorns made it harder on themselves than they had to, they flew home from Kansas having changed the narrative about winning on the road. Additionally, they didn’t blow what would have been their sixth double digit lead since Sark has taken the helm.
The two reasons why Texas hung on:
1) Bijan Robinson surpassed 30 touches for just the third time in his Texas career, rushing for 209 yards and a touchdown and adding 34 yards through the air. In all three of his 30+ touch games, Texas has won. The first was last year in Fort Worth against TCU and Gary Patterson, which just happens to be Sark’s only other true road win. The second was earlier this season against Iowa State, where the Longhorns had to fend off a Cyclone comeback.
2) Much like the Iowa State game, the Longhorns saw a veteran defender seal the victory by making a huge play in nut crunching time. Keondre Coburn’s strip of Adrian Martinez led to a fumble that Texas finally recovered by Jaylan Ford (who is not so quietly making his case to be First Team All-Big 12). Plays like Coburn’s strip are the type of moments that Longhorn fans have been begging defenders to make for years. So many games in the past have desperately needed a hero on defense, but the Longhorns have lacked the playmaking ability or maybe even the relentless effort showed by Coburn in the game’s final moments. It’s a play that Texas had to have and one that will define the season.
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Texas is a work in progress, this season has proved that and despite the lamentations of over invested fans like myself, there still would have been hope around the program even if the Longhorns had lost to Kansas State. But, Texas decided to change the uncomfortable narratives now and prove they’re ahead of schedule. That’s not to say they won’t have more struggles in road games or that their second half brain farts are over, they’re probably not. Still, the win over KSU goes a long way to erase some of the doubt that might creep in during those future moments. Growing up my dad had a handwritten note from his father that he taped on the base of our computer desktop. Truth be told, I didn’t think about what he wrote as I dialed up on the internet to use Napster or chat with friends on AIM, but I’ve thought about it a lot this week in relation to the Longhorns. He wrote to my dad to “do today what can be put off until tomorrow.” The Longhorns did that in Manhattan and because of that, the future now rests in their hands.
By beating Kansas State, Texas has put themselves in a position to grab the proverbial brass ring today, not tomorrow, not next season, now. The failures of last season, the roster attrition and rebuild, changing the culture when it hurt to do so, a heartbreaker to Alabama in the heat of September, a fourth quarter flurry against UTSA, an utter domination of their arch rival and two game sealing turnovers in tight Big 12 games, it all stacks up to provide the Longhorns with the opportunity they have now.
I held it truth, with him who sings
To one clear harp in divers tones,
That men may rise on stepping-stones
Of their dead selves to higher things.
~Alfred Lord Tennyson, In Memoriam
Texas gets to play a game in mid-November that contains close to the highest drama one can write. It’s what you day dream about in August as a fan, for the games in November to still matter deeply. Too many of the Longhorns’ seasons in the past 12 years have ended long before November rolls around and there sure haven’t been enough important games in the cold at DKR since Colt McCoy was on campus. That won’t be the case on Saturday as Texas plays its weightiest game in Austin since it hosted Oklahoma State in 2008. College Gameday is here for the second time this season and Texas gets an undefeated TCU team on ABC with America watching. For 12 years, Texas fans have longed for a moment like this, a November game that has huge stakes. Come Saturday, the wait is over.
We’ll go over the biggest storylines of Texas/TCU in Part 2.
It was pointed out to me that the original version of this article missed an opportunity to connect my monkey reference to Texas Assistant Head Coach Jeff Banks and his wife’s infamous monkey, Gia. I really missed a wide open layup there, I am sorry to all my readers and your refund is in the mail. You deserve more from me. How so much can change: Monkey bites on Halloween were dominating the headlines around Texas this time last year, it’s nice to have football to think about.