Everyone is curious to know right now if the Texas Longhorns are officially back in the mix of college football’s elite.
Traditionally Texas has been a blue blood team along with, Alabama, Michigan, Ohio State and Notre Dame. After the turn of the millennium, the Longhorns made multiple National Championship appearances but quickly fell into the pit of irrelevance in the college football world.
The man who everyone seems to blame for this fall off is Charlie Strong, who took over after Mack Brown left in 2013. Strong had an overall losing record in his tenure of 16 wins and 21 losses.
The hiring of Tom Herman on Nov. 27, 2016 was sure to be the turning point in the program to get them back to their level of excellence that they had been used to. Fans had a reason to be excited about Herman, not only because of the man he was but because in two seasons at Houston he had a record of 22-4.
In Herman’s first season, Texas would go 7-6 with a win over Missouri in the Texas Bowl. This was the program’s first bowl win in five years. The bowl win would give the Texas faithful a boost of confidence coming into the 2018 season.
This is where we stand as of now. In their first game of this season, Texas took a blow from Maryland and lost 34-29. Since then, Texas has not lost another game and is sitting pretty at the top of the Big 12. They currently claim a record of 6-1 overall and 4-0 in conference.
What really makes their situation interesting in the fact that they beat their arch rival Oklahoma in the Red River Shootout 48-45. Oklahoma was ranked seventh in the nation at the time and they are led by Heisman contending quarterback, Kyler Murray.
Not to mention, Texas has beat three opponents ranked in the top 25 this year and is averaging nearly 31 points per game on offense. Defense on the other hand is keeping it rather close by giving up 23 points per game.
Where they are at right now raises the question, is Texas back in the mix of being among college football elite and possibly winning the national title again?
Only time can tell if Texas is truly “back”. Despite how cliché that sounds, it is true. Texas hosts #13 West Virginia in a big matchup at home on Nov. 3 and they travel to Texas Tech the following week.
If the Longhorns can make it through those two weeks and do not trip up the rest of the season, then Texas could be making a push to grab a playoff spot.
Until Texas does the requiring, then they are not officially back.
