Step Right Up
What are all the possible scenarios for this Texas Football season? (Told in GIF form)
The week before the first kickoff drags on so slowly it feels like I’m five years old again, anxiously awaiting Santa’s descent down the chimney. In my eagerness for Saturday, I’ve found myself scrolling a lot and earlier this week I stumbled across a famous GIF1 from the college football world that sparked some thoughts. The GIF was Tom Herman’s ceremonial sledgehammer swing at the old locker room which turned into an epic fail. I should have known then—shame on me. The moment is preserved in the annals of the College Football Internet vault alongside the crying Sooner kid and the Florida players blocking each other. Unfortunately, it wouldn’t be Herman’s last GIF to be retired in the Hall of Shame, but it got me thinking metaphorically, which I’m admittedly wont to do.
“Step right up, boys, who’s the real man around here?”
Tom’s bungling of the demolition reminded me of that carnival game where someone tests their strength by hitting a target with a giant mallet. If hit perfectly (or the game’s not rigged), the force of the blow springs a lever which sends a puck up the structure to ring a bell at the top. You know the one. I learned today that this game is called High Striker, which I’m sure you were just made aware of too.
If you’ll bear with me, I think college football is like High Striker. The game represents a particular program in a given season—take the Texas Longhorns in the year of our Bijan 2024, for instance. In this analogy, our strongman (carny-speak for contestant) is Steve Sarkisian, the coach who's been summoned by the carnival barkers (the University, AD, etc.) to ‘step right up, see if you’re the right man for the job.’ College football coaches, being the hyper-competitive maniacs they are, don’t care how many have failed at the game before them; they believe they’ll do it differently, they’ll be the one to succeed at this program. If a school gets the right strongman (coach), then they’re going to have a pretty high floor. If they get the wrong one, however, they could end up with Tom Herman in the GIF Hall of Shame. The team is the mallet—potentially built to get the job done, but ultimately an instrument that the coach must deploy correctly to achieve favorable results. If the strongman arrives at the platform and finds only a baby’s wooden hammer instead of a giant mallet, they need to go get a better tool before they play again (aka recruit better players). But the coach and players, our proverbial strongman and hammer, must work in concert to hit the target, and once that lever is sprung and the season starts, there’s no going back. The scores on the side of the game represent the conceivable results a coach and team could achieve in a season, with the bell at the top representing the ultimate prize. I’ll save any further circus and fair talk for Dallas in October, so for now, we’ll look at the possible results for this Texas season and how we might arrive at each one. To describe the scenarios, I’ll use famous GIFs from around College Football.
Scenario 1) FML.
First off, I’m not going to take into account injuries that have yet to occur or might not occur. I’ll certainly consider the thin running back room and how a potentially grueling season affects depth, but I’m not interested in a fantasy world where hypothetical injuries happen to key players. So apart from theoretical injuries, is a disaster season for Texas possible? It would look like walking into the SEC house party with a case of beer on our shoulders and a smile, as we start to give the guests a witty greeting, we trip at the doorway, bust our face open on the floor, the beer cans explode, spray and hiss while everyone laughs.
How that plays out in reality would be a return to a .500ish record and going 0-4 against Michigan, Oklahoma, Georgia, and the Aggies, with some embarrassing losses sprinkled on top. Some pundits think it’s going to happen, and it’s popular to posit whether or not last year was a fluke for the Longhorns. Many detractors say it was. I was texting with a buddy the other day, and we were making predictions for our favorite teams; his thoughts on the Longhorns were that they “either have an amazing or a terrible season, there’s no in-between for y’all.” Part of me understands that line of thinking because of the last 15 years, the public saw Texas play for a national championship and go 5-7 the next season, then later win a Sugar Bowl against Georgia only to go a very underwhelming 7-5 the following year. But that superstitious line of thinking is based on non-existent correlation and doesn’t take into account how Sarkisian’s program has been built. When Sark arrived in Austin, it was clear he and Kyle Flood were underwhelmed by the talent in the trenches. It took Texas all of two games into Sark’s first season for the Longhorns to be completely exposed by Arkansas as being soft at the line of scrimmage. When Texas was pancaked in Fayetteville, it revealed a program that needed “Big Humans,” and in three seasons, Sark has addressed that need. Now, the Texas offensive line has four of five starters returning and boasts 122 combined starts. An experienced offensive line raises a college football team’s floor. Everyone knows left tackle Kelvin Banks (All-American and future first-round pick), but when you combine talented players like Cameron Williams and DJ Campbell with vets Hayden Conner (or Cole Hutson) and center Jake Majors, the floor is raised even further. Texas will travel to some hostile places this season, but trench play travels. So, knock on wood, but apart from catastrophic injury luck, I give a disaster season a 1% chance of happening, and I want to say 0, but I won’t because my dirtbag Aggie cousins read this. The floor of this program is considerably higher than it was in the dark ages between 2010-2021 and Texas fans should thank the Big Humans for that.
Scenario 2) I need two GIFS here.
In Scenario 2, Texas wins, but it’s not satisfying in the process, maybe it feels a little gross. This route could go a few different ways, maybe it looks like the offense under Quinn Ewers not taking the next step and then quarterback controversy ensues and doesn’t get resolved. Perhaps it’s a season where one side of the ball is dominant, but the other holds the team back. Or maybe Texas has a great record and somehow beats both Michigan and UGA, but losses to Oklahoma, Texas A&M and a Stoops brother keep the Longhorns from reaching the SEC Championship and/or the playoff. Individually, the above sentences are unlikely, but because of how many shapes this unpleasant form could take, I’ll give it a 20% chance of happening.
Scenario 3) The Dawgs get their revenge on Bevo.
Texas took a massive leap last year, and there is a world where they remain on an upward trajectory, still making progress as a program, but it’s not as drastic as the jump from 2022 to 2023. It could be obvious Texas belongs in the SEC from a "win the games you’re supposed to win" standpoint, where they sweep their rivals and beat a retooled Michigan. However, even then, the Longhorns could still find themselves a clear ladder rung below Georgia, losing to them twice before whimpering out of the college football playoff. There wouldn’t be shame in this, even if it’s frustrating, because after all, Georgia had to take their lumps against Alabama before they knocked them off the throne. I’ll give this scenario a 25 percent chance of happening.
Scenario 4) Yeah buddy, rollin’ like a big shot.
Here’s where Texans fans like myself leave the season feeling really good. The Longhorns level up again and obviously belong with the likes of Georgia and Ohio State. They go on to compete for an SEC Championship (and possibly win the conference), and win a playoff game or two, depending on how the seeding shakes out. To accomplish this feat, Texas will need Heisman ceremony invite-level quarterback play from Quinn Ewers. Is a Joe Burrow-lite season possible from Ewers? We’ve seen Sark do it before with Mac Jones at Alabama in 2020. To replicate that success, Ewers will need a spiritual connection with his stable of wide receivers, led by transfers Isaiah Bond, Matthew Golden, and Silas Bolden, plus the three young homegrown products. The Texas pass rush on the edge will also need to supplement the interior loss of T’Vondre Sweat and Byron Murphy. To do that, Texas needs to get close to the 40-sack mark as a team for the first time in a decade. The secondary will need to get their hands on a lot more footballs and create more chaos for the opponents as well. Lastly, Sark will need manage a long season that now resembles the NFL in structure—from game management to depth to culture. If Texas falls short of the ultimate goal of a National Championship in this scenario, it will be due to depth issues, a bad bounce or two, or simply because it’s not our year. But, it’s apparent that it will be soon. It happens. Even so, they can still leave the season riding like Marshawn Lynch. 40 percent likelihood.
Scenario 5) I can’t feel my face. (DISCLAIMER: Please ignore what opponent Texas Tech is playing in this GIF).
In this scenario, the High Striker bell is rung and everything comes together. As I wrote last year, Texas fans associate National Champions with being legendary, but that’s not how most champions are. We expect national championships to be decided in front of a president or in the greatest college football game ever played. In reality, great programs steal championships like a thief in the night. And in the 12-team playoff era, lionized teams like 2005 Texas will be all but extinct. Like the NFL, the 12-team playoff will reward programs more than one-off teams, and programs with top level talent, superior depth and luck. And if Texas gets it done, it’ll be due to all the factors from scenario four, but with better bounces and a greater payoff at the end. That’s not to say there won’t be adversity along the way, there will be, but Texas has one of the most talented and experienced rosters in the country. At the end of this beautiful scenario, our rivals lie defeated in crumpled heaps at Bevo’s hooves, while the trophy is held above the Longhorns heads and the tower is lit with a burnt orange 1. Just a 14 percent chance? I’ll take it.
It’s pronounced like the Peanut Butter brand.
Great analysis as usual. With the new SEC format, I do predict Texas being in the top three and hopefully one of the teams playing for the championship. Either way they make the new playoff and make a splash.