It’s yet another season of hype and excitement with the Texas football program as they bring in new head coach Tom Herman.
There’s nothing that would make Texas football fans happier than a return to glory. The ultimate return to glory would be winning the Big 12 Championship and making the College Football Playoff for the first time. Winning a National Championship would just be a special add on for Texas and their fans.
A fourth consecutive season with a losing record is not acceptable for first-year head coach Tom Herman. Much like Oklahoma head coach Lincoln Riley, Herman is taking over for one of the biggest, if not the biggest football program in the Big 12.
Since the end of the Mack Brown era, Texas has not been consistently good during any significant stretch of time. They pulled off some major upsets here and there, though. The season-opening defeat of the then ranked No. 10 Notre Dame Fighting Irish looked to finally be the reemergence of Texas football. Yet, both programs disappointed their fan bases in 2016.
With Herman at the helm, conference championship and College Football Playoff talk has returned in Austin. Former head coach Charlie Strong did not take all of the spirit out of Longhorn fans. Strong is now the head man with the South Florida Bulls and out of sight for the Longhorns.
The difficulty of figuring out exactly where the Longhorns are at right now makes predicting their success more of a chore. There was renewed energy to the team last year and they still didn’t make it to a bowl game. Renewed energy is present again but the same result would indicate a bigger problem in the program.
Looking at the bigger picture, if Texas can return to the top of the Big 12 standings, then the conference will have a better chance at sending a team to the Playoff. The College Football Playoff Selection Committee would rather go with a brand name/blue blood school to create excitement around the Semifinal games than to go with another school like Kansas State or West Virginia with less marketability.
Now, let’s take a look at the five reasons why the Texas Longhorns will win the National Championship in 2017.
5. Chance to prove themselves on national stage
Texas is thrown into the fire rapidly as it faces the No. 4 USC Trojans in Week 3. Sophomore quarterback Shane Buechele gets to prove his worth against one of the best in the nation in Sam Darnold. If Buechele outperforms Darnold, he’ll not only get Texas ahead in the rankings, but he’ll further his Heisman campaign.
In October, the Longhorns face the three best teams in the Big 12 in three straight weeks. That stretch starts against the Kansas State Wildcats on Oct. 7. Texas then travels to Dallas to face the Oklahoma Sooners in the Red River Game on Oct. 14. The final game of that three game stretch comes against Mike Gundy and the Oklahoma State Cowboys.
Texas needs to pull out victories in at least three of those four games. However, showing that they can defeat more than half of those opponents, along with clearing the rest of their schedule should be enough to get them into the Playoff field.
Few very programs command the attention and entertainment level than Texas. We’ll see if the Longhorns can get on the right track.
4. Talent is already there
If Charlie Strong did something right during his three-year tenure in Austin, it was recruiting. Strong achieved top 25 recruiting classes each National Signing Day he was with the program. There’s talent there, it was never pieced together correctly.
Herman recruited at a high level for being a part of a Group of Five program. For instance, he locked up one of the best defensive players in the country in 2016 to come to the Houston Cougars in defensive lineman Ed Oliver.
If Herman can figure out what to do with players like receiver Jerrod Heard, nose tackle Poona Ford, defensive back Kris Boyd, etc. then the Longhorns will be a different team. So much athleticism and skill is there on the Texas roster which is why there is so much excitement surrounding the program.
Developing the four and five-star recruits that have been brought into Austin already needs to happen. Herman is the right guy for the job.
3. Tom Herman’s success at big time programs
One of the first destinations that Herman stopped at on his coaching path so far was already the University of Texas. Herman joined the Texas football coaching staff as a graduate assistant in 1999. He worked with a few All-Americans on the offensive line as an assistant.
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The two best examples of Herman’s track record of success with Power Five teams were with the Ohio State Buckeyes and Iowa State Cyclones. He was the offensive coordinator with both schools. His tenure with the Buckeyes included a National Championship in 2014 while working with the three quarterback debacle with the Ohio State offense.
In his time with Iowa State, Herman led the Cyclone offense to a 52-point performance against the Texas Tech Red Raiders. That was one of the best offensive performances during Iowa State’s time in the Big 12.
With Houston, Herman put together some incredible runs. While he didn’t finish up in the best fashion at the end of the 2016 season, he likely had his attention turned to coaching a bigger program.
2. Brand Name
When the Longhorns defeated No. 10 Notre Dame to start the 2016 campaign, they jumped from un-ranked with just a few votes in the AP Poll in the Week 1 rankings to No. 11 in Week 2. It’s hard to imagine any other program getting that kind of jump in just a week’s time.
Turns out, both Texas and Notre Dame were both not very good in 2016. However, both programs are two of the storied teams in college football history. When the Horns and Irish are in a slump it should not last long because of the pressure and resources given to coaches and players to succeed.
If the Longhorns can get themselves into the thick of Playoff contention, the media and voters will be friendly to them. That’s the way things go in college football. More people watch and it’s more exciting when blue bloods like Texas are at the top of the college football world.
Once again, Texas was ranked higher than most people anticipated in the Amway Coaches Poll. A losing record one season ago did not prevent voters from putting Texas at No. 23. For Texas, this is not a problem but an opportunity to capitalize on.
1. Consistent quarterback in place
The biggest hurdle in the way of Texas finding success is the quarterback. Whether it was Tyrone Swoopes, Jerrod Heard, David Ash, Case McCoy, etc., the Longhorns could not find an option that was consistently good.
Now, Texas has something to work with. Shane Buechele had a solid freshman season. He totaled 23 touchdowns and tossed only 11 interceptions. Lowering the touchdown-to-turnover ratio is one of the biggest improvements Buechele needs to make entering his sophomore season.
With a receiving corps featuring talents such as Collin Johnson, former Baylor transfer Devin Duvernay, Armanti Foreman, John Burt, etc. you have all the weapons needed to spread the ball around efficiently. Yet, there needs to be less dropped balls.
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If Herman managed to figure out how to make J.T. Barrett and Cardale Jones successful enough to bring Ohio State’s offense to a National Championship in 2014, he can figure out Buechele. Texas not only has the right QB, they have the right coach to develop him.