Ah, the first Sunday of September. Unless you’re one of the unfortunate (?) saps who have to wait till Labor Day night to see your team play, you’re spending today rehashing and parsing your team’s performance, rating it against the pre-season hype and your personal expectations, and recalibrating your hopes for the season. Yes, college football is back, and all is right with the world.
I spent yesterday morning enjoying the first College Gameday of the year—I have to admit that, this season, I hadn’t read any magazines or done much pre-season salivating. The conference twists of last spring and even last month left a bit of a sour taste in my mouth. Mostly because Texas is my alma mater, and I felt like they played their advantage of money and cache high-handedly, arrogantly, and possibly even hypocritically as Mack Brown extolled the advantages of a 9- or 10-team conference despite years of digs at the Pac-10 and Big 10 for not having conference championships. But all of that dissipated on Thursday night as I watched the first SEC team to roll out of the gates, and I was ready to see my Horns get their ball on.
My biggest interests yesterday were seeing new quarterback Garrett Gilbert’s debut as the starter and seeing whether Mack delivered on his “campaign promises” of last spring to revamp the Texas offense in a new style—or the old style, if you want to go back to the days when I first started watching Texas because my older brother was there (late 90s).
Gilbert had a baptism by fire in last year’s national championship, and he faced down a Nick Saban defense that is likely the toughest defense he will ever face. I don’t know if it was that, or just a naturally cool head, but Gilbert came out and played more like a second-year starter than a first. Granted, he wasn’t given a lot of throwing to do (I didn’t look at the statistics, but just watching I felt like three plays out of four were runs), and not every ball he threw was golden. But. A couple of them were. Strong arm, perfect placement, confident throws. He didn’t throw an interception, and he didn’t make any of the truly boneheaded rookie mistakes. Yet. Perhaps he might when we face someone tougher than Rice. Or perhaps he got all of that out of his system against Alabama. For now, he looked off to a good start and like someone who will grow into a superstar by the time he comes back next year.
To my second point, Mack Brown gave us what he promised. And I could not be more thrilled. I live in SEC territory, and most of the games I watch are SEC games. Pretty much all the teams down here insist on a strong running game. They like to slug their opponents in the gut, over and over and over, and then throw the ball just when the punches start to feel rhythmic. It’s iron man football, with enough finesse to be flexible, not finesse with a little iron. So I was happy to hear Texas would be getting back to that style, but skeptical as to whether they would really do it. As I alluded to above, they did. Texas ran the ball. A lot. Garrett was lining up under center as the default offense, and this team used the shotgun about as sparingly as the last few Texas offenses had used under-center formations. Tre’ Newton had a great game, and former big boy (nah, he’s still big, just not as big) Cody Johnson plowed over a few the Owls’ just for fun. It was fun to watch. For me—even if all the Austin sports writers don’t know what to make of it after six years of high-flying pass-dominated offenses..
There are still a few kinks to be smoothed out and a few questions to be answered, but as an opener? Solid. And it promises exciting football ahead.
Going into this season, I expected Texas would drop a couple games. But after Oklahoma’s struggle with Utah State, I’m feeling a little better. I mean, as long as we beat Oklahoma, it’s a winning season.
Now, to switch hats briefly before I sign off, my thoughts on the SEC after seeing the scores and watching the end of the Florida game and the embarrassing LSU/NC game. Vandy, going down early to Northwestern. Ole Miss, losing to Jacksonville State. LSU struggling against a decimated North Carolina team—I can’t even call that win a win, because it was only a win on paper. LSU should have lost that game. Straight up. They got lucky, and I hope they feel like it was a loss and get their heads clear. No more sloppy plays. No more complacency. Florida had a rough game, too, rougher than is to be expected even with new offensive leaders. Is this going to be a down year for the SEC? It might be a season where everybody gets their hands dirty and nobody comes up clean. There likely won’t be any back-door 2-loss SEC team in the national championship game, not if two other conferences take care of business. Either that, or we’ll get another season where one team emerges dominant, like 2004 when Auburn (the year’s real, if unofficial, national champions!) went undefeated.
Though, at least nowadays, I don’t think that clear SEC champion would have to worry about getting squeezed out of the national championship game.
