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Texas Football: Way-too-early game-by-game predictions for 2020

By Jake Mitchell

HOUSTON, TX - SEPTEMBER 14: Head coach Tom Herman of the Texas Longhorns prepares to lead the team onto the field before the game against the Rice Owls at NRG Stadium on September 14, 2019 in Houston, Texas. (Photo by Tim Warner/Getty Images)
HOUSTON, TX - SEPTEMBER 14: Head coach Tom Herman of the Texas Longhorns prepares to lead the team onto the field before the game against the Rice Owls at NRG Stadium on September 14, 2019 in Houston, Texas. (Photo by Tim Warner/Getty Images) /
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Texas football’s 8-5 finish in 2019 was a disappointing one in Austin. Can Tom Herman and the Longhorns make the leap in 2020?

For a period of a few years, joking that “Texas is back” was funny, but partially because the idea of Texas being back was so far out there. From 2014-17, their highest win total in a season was just seven.

Under Tom Herman, however, “Texas is back” has become less of a taunt and more of a tease. After ten wins and a victory over Georgia in the 2018 Sugar Bowl, it looked like the Longhorns may have really been back. They, of course, followed it with just an 8-5 2019 campaign.

Even in that 2019 season, when Texas lost a classic 45-38 shootout to LSU, it looked like the Longhorns had closed the gap with the elite programs in college football. It made the four other losses in that season even tougher to swallow.

Herman, by showing flashes of greatness, has actually increased the pressure on himself. That taste of being double-digit winners and bringing home big bowl victories was too sweet in Austin. It’s a position this fan base has wanted to be back in for a long time, and after 2018, they realize just how close they are.

This will be a pivotal season for this Longhorn program. If Herman follows up 2019 with another average, eight-win season, then his days may start to feel numbered in Austin. If Texas can get back on the 2018 track, then they may be, genuinely, “back”.

The Longhorns are at a fork in the road in the Tom Herman tenure. With a schedule full of roadblocks, it will be interesting to see which way Texas goes.

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