Rejoice, football fans, because the 2014 NCAA College Football season just around the corner, it’s time to start looking at the long road to the new College Football Championship Game at AT&T Stadium in Arlington, Texas.
I’ll write plenty about the teams at the top of the tree, so I thought it would be interesting to start by shining the spotlight on five schools who, for one reason or another, need a positive, win-filled 2014 season.
Sitting at #4 is the University of Texas.
It has been said everywhere over and over that legendary Longhorns head coach Mack Brown wasn’t pushed out of a job at the end of last season. We heard every one from the cleaners of the Texas locker room to the president of the university, and they all said that Brown elected to call time on his illustrious career.
To tell the truth, I’m not sold. The fact that the Longhorns haven’t won a Big XII title since 2009 is a major reason why there’s been so much change in Austin over the summer. I mean, this is a league that the Longhorns used to dominate! More and more in recent years, they’ve been dominated.
Regardless of the reasons why, the move has been made and highly-touted ex-Louisville coach Charlie Strong comes into Austin to take over a Longhorns squad that hasn’t exactly been at the top of their game lately. Strong upset a lot of the Texas faithful at the recent Big XII media days, admitting that the Longhorns weren’t going to figure in the National Championship hunt this year.
That’s the truth, of course, and it’s nice to see that Strong – who was involved in Florida under Urban Meyer, winning two National Championships in Gainesville – isn’t going to shy away from telling the truth. After all, this is a football program that’s fallen short of 10 wins in the last four seasons.
Low expectations are probably best in Austin. Indeed, a lot of what Texas hopes to do will be dependent on the form and health of starting QB David Ash. Crazy to think that the ‘Horns haven’t had a really good, solid signal caller since Colt McCoy departed. Even if Ash is healthy, he’s nowhere near the elite quarterback Texas needs in a quarterback-happy league like the Big XII has become.
One saving grace offensively is the three-pronged running attack of Malcolm Brown, Johnathan Gray and Joe Bergeron, who were all impressive last year, and figure to get lots of carries right from Texas’ opening game against in-state rivals (read: cupcakes) North Texas, particularly if Ash is having trouble finding form.
The Big XII schedule is tough enough, and Texas are also faced with Brigham Young and UCLA, two teams you would assume are going to have solid seasons. Obviously Texas don’t have to go out and win everything, but Strong would need to at least match Mack Brown’s 8-5 mark last year to settle the natives.
Of course, knowing how rabid the Longhorn fan base can be, Strong would want to hope his team can pull out more than ten wins this year.
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