A November To Forget

First, on November 11th, a butt whooping at the hands of Kansas State dashed any hopes Texas had for a repeat at the National Championship. Oh, and their prized QB got knocked out of the game. Then last Friday, the Longhorns got beat by Texas A&M and lost their opportunity to play for a Big XII championship. Oh, and Colt McCoy was knocked out of the game again. Then last Monday came word that the Longhorns prized defensive coordinator was leaving to accept a head coaching position. And not just any head coaching position, but a position with a conference rival in Iowa State. Finally, just the other day, the rumors began flying that backup quarterback Jevan Snead was looking to leave Texas also (see below). What could go wrong for Texas next? Well, not all is doom and gloom in Austin. First, it’s been rumored that Alabama defensive coordinator and now Crimson Tide interim head coach Joe Kines, Miami defensive coordinator Randy Shannon and Washington Redskins secondary coach Jerry Gray are possible candidates to replace Chizik. Texas co-defensive coordinator Duane Akina could also be considered. I have also heard that Texas would be headed to either the Gator or Alamo bowls because the Cotton had settled on the loser of the Big 12 title game – Oklahoma or Nebraska. It will be the Gator Bowl if West Virginia loses at home to Rutgers on Saturday. It will be the Alamo if West Virginia wins. The ACC opponent in the Gator would probably be Clemson, which lost three of its last four. The opponent in the Alamo is a 6-6 Iowa team. Neither opponent seems too great, and either way Texas should be the heavy favorite. Finally, it should be noted that as of today, Texas has an extremely talented recruiting class coming in next year. Although official signing day is still months away, the Longhorns have several verbal commitments including Trey Allen, John Brantley, Curtis Brown, John Chiles, Michael Huey, Andre Jones, Aundre McGaskey, Jerrod Gooch, Malcolm Williams, and Keenan Robinson just to name a few. You can read the entire commitment list here. So Longhorn fans, although November was definitely a month to forget, the future looks bright. As the saying goes, at Texas they don’t rebuild, they reload!