Texas in need of culture wins down the final stretch
A common question we received all offseason was if we believed the culture in the Texas football program was in fact improved over last year. The stock answer was, “We think so, but we won’t know for sure until adversity hits.”
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The TCU loss on Saturday night in DKR could make for adverse conditions this week. As Coach Bryan Erwin mentioned, there’s no way the offense has confidence at this point. Texas hasn’t scored an offensive touchdown in six quarters and Quinn Ewers is struggling mightily with accuracy. Texas is just entirely too predictable. It’s also possible the defense could be discouraged after seeing its best performance of the season wasted. The thing is, it’s up to the defense to decide if that performance was wasted, or a stepping stone to taking their game to another level over the final 3-4 games. Steve Sarkisian mentioned that issue in his Monday press conference, “I think that’s what good teams do. You start to find your rhythm. You start to find your calling card on either side of the ball. I think they’ve got a lot of confidence to build off of.”
Adversity striking while a Big 12 title appearance is still possible (Texas fans will be cheering for West Virginia to beat Kansas State in Morgantown this weekend) affords the staff a great opportunity to evaluate who is bought in and who isn’t. A wise man once said, “Football doesn’t build character. It eliminates the weak ones.” There’s even a stadium named after that guy.
Vanderbilt coach Clark Lea was emotional after his team ended its 26-game SEC losing streak. On paper the 3-6 Commodores had no business going to Kentucky and beating a ranked Wildcats team, but they did. Vandy football isn’t exactly the center of the football universe and I don’t claim to know much about them, but seeing that win from afar was quite telling about the level of buy in from the players. That’s a culture win.
Texas beating Kansas is the expected outcome, at least per Las Vegas, but anyone who has watched Texas since the blowout win over Oklahoma expects this to be a close game, especially if star quarterback Jalon Daniels can play for the Jayhawks.
On Monday Sarkisian also stated, “I think there’s a lot of belief in what we’re doing. I still think there’s a lot of hope in what this season can be.”
Kansas has belief and hope, too. They’ll also have confidence after last season’s 57-56 overtime win in Austin.
Texas no longer controls its own destiny in the Big 12, though the players and coaches are in control of whether or not they power through the tape down the home stretch.
If they do, we’ll have our answer to the culture question.
