The Reheat: Texas sized takeaways from Week 5 in College Football

Welcome to The Reheat, a weekly recap of the previous day’s game, just popped out of the microwave. Look for it every Sunday, rain or shine.

Week five was the perfect week for the Longhorns to have a bye.

Starting with Virginia’s upset of Florida State on Friday night all the way to the chaos in Athens and Happy Valley, the slate was loaded with one thriller after another. The spectacle which was Jackson Arnold’s low football IQ against Texas A&M was like the slapstick comedy that finds its way into the Oscar nominations.

It was also a revealing week, as a drama filled weekend showed a lot about the sports contenders and pretenders. Let’s reheat week five with a few takeaways and what it means for Texas.

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Takeaway 1: The overtime format tweak has made a massive difference

When Georgia Tech and Georgia went to 8OT last year, it was obvious college football’s overtime format was broken. Kirby Smart broke the old way by calling timeouts every time the Yellow Jackets lined up for a play. It bled Georgia Tech’s two-point conversion plays dry, but it also made something that should be swift feel drawn out and tedious.

With overtimes in Charlottesville, Starkville, Winston-Salem and Happy Valley all moving quickly, it was clear the shift in rules made a massive difference in how a game flows toward a dramatic conclusion. I think back to a World Cup game from 2010, when a heartbreaker was decided by penalties and the British commentator cried out, “It’s that instant, it’s that cruel!” That’s what any overtime format in sports should give us.

Takeaway 2: Bugaboos

Yesterday wasn’t the day for removing curses—they only grew larger. Not only could James Franklin and Penn State still not win the big one, but Georgia couldn’t turn the tide either.

Kirby Smart is a Georgia and coaching legend, but the idea of him ever reversing the Alabama juju feels unfathomable now. Georgia has lost 10 of 11 meetings to the Crimson Tide, and the Bulldogs constantly shot themselves in the foot last night in Athens. It’s no longer a Nick Saban thing or a Kalen DeBoer advantage—it’s a Georgia problem. A dropped touchdown pass and a refusal to kick a short, game-tying field goal capped off an awful start to yet another Bulldog blunder.

I’m not an “every team should have a black jersey” guy, nor do I ever advocate for Texas wearing alternate uniforms with orange flames, etc., but if Steve Sarkisian doesn’t have Texas go to Athens in November wearing Alabama’s colors, what are we doing? He should learn from Smart and not let Georgia become a bugaboo of his own.

Takeaway 3: It’s Wide Open

While watching an incomprehensible amount of football this weekend, I was comforted by a constant thought when thinking about Texas: “This thing is wide open.”

Multiple top-five teams lost, while others were on the ropes. Offenses everywhere are clunky, rosters have holes and penalties are an epidemic. That doesn’t mean the issues the Longhorns have shouldn’t be fixed or can’t catch up to them, but it shows they’re not problems unique to Texas.

What’s more, I saw zero defenses faster or more communicative than Texas. There are patchwork sides of the football everywhere. Meaning the continuity the Longhorns’ defense has under Pete Kwiatkowski is special. Plus, practically every offense in the country is a work in progress, something that should hearten Longhorn fans as they wait for their own to come along under Arch Manning.

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Schadenfreude of the Week: I chuckled at Georgia’s inability to beat Bama, while Penn State’s ineptitude actually made me feel uncomfortable thinking of their fans pain. But I took a lot of pleasure in Brian Kelly and LSU losing.

This Piping Hot Take Burned the Roof of My Mouth: Four teams in the current AP top 10 won’t make the CFP at season’s end. I’ll let you figure out who.

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Hype Train Level: Let’s wrestle some Gators in The Swamp. The sluggish start to the season faded the Longhorns in the public’s mind after a preseason of unheralded hype, but over the next two weeks Texas will put the country back on notice.