Texas Football: Game-by-game predictions for 2017
The Texas football team enters year one under head coach Tom Herman in 2017. Here’s a look at how the season could go with game predictions.
The Texas Longhorns parted ways with head coach Charlie Strong to end the 2016 season. Strong finished with a 16-21 record in three seasons as the Longhorns head coach. Now, Tom Herman takes over after going 22-4 in two seasons with the Houston Cougars.
Herman looks to bring his magic from Houston to Austin and turn around a football powerhouse headed in a downward spiral. They have struggled mightily since Mack Brown resigned as head coach in 2013. They are a long ways off of the team that lost in the BCS Championship game to the Alabama Crimson Tide in 2009. Texas was a 13-1 team then, they were a 5-7 team last season.
The Texas Longhorns administration hopes that Herman can breathe new life into the program and possibly take the Big 12 title from the Oklahoma Sooners this season. The Sooners are just one team that should challenge for the Big 12 crown next to the Oklahoma State Cowboys, West Virginia Mountaineers and TCU Horned Frogs.
The Longhorns return six players on offense and 10 on defense from last year’s team. Quarterback Shane Buechele should be in good hands with Herman at the helm. The defense should be, too, considering they’re led by star-in-the-making linebacker Malik Jefferson.
Their schedule serves as a stepping stone. Here’s a look at their game-by-game predictions for the 2017 slate.
The Longhorns open the season against the Maryland Terrapins. The Terrapins are a program going through a rebuild of their own. They went 6-7 in head coach D.J. Durkin’s first season.
The Big Ten has proven to be a tough task for Durkin so far. He lost four games in a row to the Indiana Hoosiers, Michigan Wolverines, Ohio State Buckeyes and Nebraska Cornhuskers in consecutive weeks last season. They finished 3-6 in conference play and won two of their final nine games in 2016.
Maryland returns 12 starters (six on offense, six on defense) from last year’s team. They’ve looked to create some depth on the recruiting trail. The Terrapins raked in 27 enrollees in their 2017 recruiting class. Their class ranked 18th overall and fourth in the conference, according to 247Sports.
The Terrapins could use the fresh bodies considering their performance last season. They were held to 13 total points when facing ranked opponents a season ago. The offense ranked 89th in the FBS in points per game (25.8) and the defense ranked 75th in scoring defense (29.5).
The Texas Longhorns could draw those recruits out of the trenches early in a fast-paced Herman offense. Herman’s team averaged 40.4 points per game in 2015 and 35.8 points per game in 2016.
It is the team’s first meeting since 1978. Texas has shutout the Terrapins in three matchups so far.
Final: Maryland 20, Texas 35 (1-0)