Part Two: A Rendezvous with Death
Texas comes face to face with its past and future against TCU.
But I've a rendezvous with Death
At midnight in some flaming town,
When Spring trips north again this year,
And I to my pledged word am true,
I shall not fail that rendezvous.
~Alan Seeger “I Have a Rendezvous with Death”
In part one we established that Texas’ win over Kansas State gave the Longhorns a rare opportunity. They get the chance to host a late season game with incredibly high stakes. TCU travels to Austin while sitting at 9-0 and fourth in the College Football Playoff rankings. If Texas wins on Saturday, the Longhorns and Horned Frogs will be on a collision course to meet again in Arlington in December. Late season football with big implications wasn’t always so uncommon in Austin. From 1998-2009, The Longhorns hosted 14 Top 25 matchups in Austin following the Red River Shootout. They were 14-0 in those matchups. But since 2010, Texas has hosted only six Top 25 matchups after the Oklahoma game. Their record in those games? 1-5.1
The lack of important games in late October and November underscores Texas Football’s futility during the past 12 years. Recently, the Longhorns have been like the Cowboys, Lakers or Yankees, in that they often dominate the conversation during the offseason or September, but rarely are mentioned late into a season. With College Gameday and ABC in town for Texas/TCU, that’s over, but Texas still must get its signature late-season home win that’s been missing from its resume for over a decade. I think most talking heads miscast Texas’ matchup with Alabama in September as the game that could serve as the Longhorns’ rebirth. TCU is the true opportunity to flip the script. It’s a rendezvous with death, a chance at new life. The narratives in Austin will be thicker than the cold breeze that’s expected to blow through during the game. Here are the five biggest storylines in Texas/TCU.
1) A heel turn.
The first question in Steve Sarkisian’s Monday press conference was about his Special Assistant to the Head Coach. Sark even commented that he was waiting to see how long it took for a reporter to ask about Gary.
Do you all remember when Darrell Royal left Texas and joined Emory Ballard’s staff at Texas A&M? Me either. That’s because it didn’t happen. Things like this rarely do. Legends don’t often change colors. Alternate universes are all the rage in Hollywood storytelling nowadays, and witnessing Patterson in his signature gameday garb while in burnt orange and white has felt like a sight meant for the bizzarro world.
Coach Patterson strolled the TCU sidelines for 20 years with his visor, sweat towel and turtleneck and he was rewarded with for his performance with a statue out front after he took the program to unimaginable heights. But, mortality comes for all men and even he was shown the door, eventually. Patterson was fired midseason last year after several disappointing years in a row. Now, new coach Sonny Dykes, who left SMU and made the short journey on I-20 to Fort Worth, has taken a team full of his predecessors’ players to a place that Patterson had not in almost a decade. Even with the dip in recent years, Patterson served as the Longhorns long-time foil after TCU joined the Big 12, going 7-3 against Texas in that span. Where Texas’ football program was criticized for lack of player development, softness and underachieving, the Horned Frogs were lauded for the opposite under Patterson. Sarkisian’s failures in year one showed a need for outside voices in the program, people who could self-scout, reverse-engineer game plans and consult about all things plaguing the team.2 So, Sark took a page out of Nick Saban's book and had Patterson make a pit stop in Austin as the program's ombudsman.
The turnaround of the Texas defense this season has been remarkable, and pundits are quick to take credit away from Pete Kwiatkowski and give it to Patterson. That’s probably unfair, but Patterson’s role in game planning shouldn’t be understated. There will be tons of attention focused on his presence before and during the game. After all, Patterson recruited and coached most of these players, including senior quarterback Max Duggan and even Dykes himself, who served in an analyst role for Patterson before taking the SMU job. Patterson knows their tendencies, strengths and weaknesses and his revelations of those facts to Sarkisian and PK complete his heel turn to the dark side. His TCU tenure was marked by his fierce competitiveness and his hatred of Texas, but now the Longhorns’ are his vehicle for vengeance. That’s not to say that Dykes won’t want vengeance of his own. He’s found his place in Fort Worth, but it’s no secret that he wanted the Texas job when Tom Herman was fired. He’ll want to make Chris Del Conte think that he went with the wrong man.
When Patterson joined Sarkisian in Austin, nobody could have dreamt that this game would carry with it the importance that it has. Most expected Dykes to struggle with Patterson’s players and for Texas to underperform again. Combined, both teams have surpassed expectations, and Patterson donning orange and white ramps up the intrigue even further.
2) Is this only Round One?
On Monday, Sarkisian was quick to mention that Texas hasn’t beaten a top five team in Austin since 1999 when Texas defeated #3 Nebraska. What he didn’t say is that later that season, Texas lost to the Huskers in a Big 12 title game rematch (which was the only time Nebraska beat Texas while sharing a conference). TCU is all but guaranteed to make the conference title game, regardless of what happens in Austin on Saturday. A loss could be damaging to TCU’s playoff resume, but it could still afford one to Texas if they’re able to avenge it in a month. With a win over TCU, the Longhorns are in prime position to make it to Arlington as well. Frankly, they could still lose to TCU and make the title game if they avoided another misstep, but they would need help in the form of Kansas State stumbling before then. A Texas win and both teams winning out afterwards would set up a conference championship with even more drama than Saturday. The game in Austin is mostly about the two teams competing at DKR, but a rematch in Arlington would be about the Longhorns versus the entirety of the Big 12 as they aim one giant “Horns Down” at a Texas going for its fourth conference title before it leaves town.
3) Fast Starts vs. Furious Finishes
The second half against Kansas State showed that the Longhorns still have issues in the second half. The Longhorns rank fifth in first half scoring and 66th in the second half. There isn’t one culprit for why the Longhorns struggle in the second act, but much can be tied to their passing game, which plummets to an average of 31 yards gained through the air in the fourth quarter. The Longhorns average 36.1 points a game, but only 13 of those points come in the second half.
Are the Longhorns slowed down by Sarkisian going conservative or becoming too stubborn? Or is it simply the fact that once the game goes off script, you’re relying on young Quinn Ewers to make complex reads and audibles. The answer remains elusive, and the problem remains.
TCU is almost a mirror image of Texas. They start slowly, but finish with a flurry of points. They’ve trailed by double digits against multiple opponents this season, but find ways to win behind Duggan and his stable of four dynamic wide receivers, led by former Texas commit and future first-rounder Quentin Johnston. Duggan was once billed as a poor man’s Sam Ehlinger who excelled in QB power and simple passing concepts, but under Dykes he’s reinvented himself into a true air-raid quarterback after originally losing the starting job in fall camp. However, Duggan might pose his greatest threat to Texas if he channels who he was under Patterson as a dual threat quarterback. Texas has defended the run and deep pass extremely well this season, but has shown cracks against mobile quarterbacks in its three losses.
One can imagine a scenario where Texas jumps out to a big lead behind a strong first half, but then must hold on for dear life as TCU storms back in the second. Maybe overtime will be required to balance the scales.
4) A Big 12 Redux.
The Big 12 hasn’t been the Wild West of offense that it was under Mike Leach, Art Briles and Dana Holgorsen for a few years now, despite what uninformed media types might tell you. Then again, Saturday could seem like a tribute night to the Big 12 of yesteryear. TCU will be the most talented offense Texas will face all season, with multiple draft picks at wide receiver, 1,000-yard rusher Kendre Miller and former Longhorn Jared Wiley at tight end. Texas obviously has the best running back in college football in Bijan Robinson behind an offensive line that seems to be developing as fast as a growing Labrador puppy. Xavier Worthy has 21 touchdowns in 21 games at Texas and in recent weeks the Longhorns have seen ancillary targets like Savion Red, Jahleel Billingsley and Brenen Thompson begin to emerge in the passing game. Ewers has struggled since his brilliant performance against OU, completing just 50% of his passes, but he’s been much better at home and will need to play the most complete game of his young career for Texas to win. The key to the game will be how well the Frogs can defend the run and force Ewers to beat them. Last season, Robinson had a career day against TCU’s defense, granted it was a different scheme. Still, they haven’t been good at defending the run yet this season, though that hasn’t come back to bite them, yet. If you’ve missed the old Big 12, and sometimes watch old Red Raiders and Oklahoma State games for a little nostalgia, this game is for you.
5) Recruiting.3
Texas Football plays three games every weekend, its opponent and then the jockeying for momentum against A&M and Oklahoma for recruiting purposes. If you haven’t noticed, things aren’t going particularly well in College Station and Norman this season. After signing the greatest recruiting class of all time, A&M sits at 3-6 and needs to win out to become bowl eligible. Jimbo clearly has been reading numerous articles about millennials in the workforce in The Atlantic and is giving “quiet quitting” his best effort. The Aggies sit at 23rd in the recruiting composite rankings and have 11 shaky commitments. Then on Monday, the crown jewel of their class, Denton Ryan 5-star linebacker Anthony Hill decommitted and is now visiting Austin on Saturday. Texas originally finished in second place to A&M, but he clearly never got Austin off his mind. Also, the Longhorns have two of his high school teammates in his ear, J’Tavion Sanders and Austin Jordan.
In Norman, the Sooners will be fighting to stay above .500 in Brent Venables’ first season and recently lost Austin Westlake’s 4-star defensive end Colton Vasek to Texas. The Longhorn legacy Vasek couldn’t really bring himself to wear crimson and cream and gave ON3.com’s Hayes Fawcett the following quote: “I’ve grown up a UT fan my entire life. When I went to go see the OU vs Texas game as an OU recruit, it just really didn’t feel right to me at all. Deep down I wanted to be playing for the team wearing burnt orange.”
Texas is hosting its biggest in-season recruiting weekend since I’ve been a fan and will have almost two dozen 4-star or higher recruits in town, including Arch Manning. Manning actually might be in town only for Third Eye Blind - I haven’t verified. Either way, it’s the biggest game in Austin in over a decade and the chance for the Longhorns to leave their arch nemeses in the dust on the recruiting trail. The atmosphere inside the stadium will only help attract kids to Austin. Many people have the opinion that DKR is a wine and cheese crowd and that it lacks the energy that some other stadiums in college football have. That definitely can be the case when the stakes are low or removed, but when they’re at their highest, the crowd comes unglued.
I thought of the poem “A Rendezvous with Death” when writing this because it feels like Texas is at a true inflection point - a line in the sand has been drawn. There’s a groundswell of momentum for the program on the enthusiasm, recruiting and belief front. The move to the SEC looms large, but getting another Big 12 trophy looms even larger. Still, those old demons of doubt and disappointment lurk in the shadows. Texas comes face to face with its past and future against TCU. Before last week, I was resigned. Now, I’m believing. As for my prediction? They shall not fail that rendezvous.
The lone win came in November, 2018 against Iowa State.
Two of the things that have given me the biggest confidence in Sarkisian are the pledge of allegiance he was given by the Manning family and Gary Patterson. You wouldn’t have seen Patterson serving as an analyst for Tom Herman or Charlie Strong.
I get all my recruiting info from InsideTexas.com, they have unparalleled analysis and coverage of prospects and it’s a can’t miss subscription for Texas fans. They’ll do a better job breaking down all things recruiting than I ever dream or want to do.
Another wonderful article. Your insight to the program is awesome and storytelling keeps me reading. However, I must ask that you keep the lakers out of that group, we did win the championship a couple of years ago!