The Week That Will Be: Mamba Mentality

The Horns pulled off the victory....now do it again. And again.

Last Week: 3-3 ATS 4-2 SU  

For the Year: 5-7 (.417) (-$250) ATS 8-4 (.667) SU 

Chalk (Oregon –6.5 @ Texas Tech): 

Joey the Mouth McGuire is now 0-2 since he spent the entire off-season yapping his mouth. And thank you Tech for opening the back door cover for the Ducks.  

Bad Beat (Nebraska +3.5 @ Colorado): 

Nebraska had 8 sacks of Shedeur Sanders but he still threw for 393 yards and two touchdowns. He now has more than 900 yards in two games. The Cornhuskers' new $74 million man went out and had to have Jeff Sims last winter, he now has six turnovers in two games. The Buffs tough road continues, they have rival Colorado State this weekend before finishing out the month with a trip to Oregon and a visit from USC.  

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Pandemonium. 

There was music playing, players from both teams running here and there, chants of “SEC SEC SEC” coming from the north end of the stadium, there was Nick Saban trying to disappear to the home locker-room, the governor is over there, the Minister of Culture not far away. 

When they met on the field, there was quick recognition, and some quick advice: 

“Celebrate tonight and get your ass back to work tomorrow.” 

Vince Young knows a thing or two about handling the spotlight and handling the team that is learning how to win, so he’s one to take advice from. 

But the best thing was, I don’t think Quinn Ewers needed that advice. 

ESPN’s Holly Rowe tried to be cutesy and bait him, but he didn’t take the bait. 

“Nothing. We still got a lot of games to win.” 

Saturday night was a culmination of the process that Steve Sarkisian talked about in his opening press conference – it was about the individual wins or losses, it was about getting better each and every day and playing your brand of football. The rest would take care of itself. 

And boy it did. 

Alabama’s worst home loss since 2004. Their first home loss in 21 games. Their first non-conference regular season loss in 57 tries. A 73-game home winning streak when having a lead in the fourth quarter. 

All gone.  

This coaching staff went into Bryant-Denny Stadium and did what nobody does – they outcoached Nick Saban and his staff. 

The apprentice defeated the master. 

And quite frankly, did last year too but the Heisman Trophy winning quarterback bailed him out. 

You hate to isolate individual players on a night like this, but Ewers was fantastic. Alabama took the lead at the end of the third quarter. They started playing Dixieland Delight and flashing those cool lights of theirs and waving their pom poms and saying do this and that to Auburn.  

I was there, it was absolutely electric. 

Everyone outside of that stadium expected it. It might have even been acceptable for the Horns to close up shop, go three and out and say well we gave it our best shot but they’re Alabama and we’re not supposed to win yet. 

They went three and out with a touchdown. 

Quinn Ewers said “shoo fly” to Alabama and Nick Saban. 

Then the Horns got an interception and got another touchdown where DJ Campbell put their entire defensive line into the third row. 

There was work left to do. After Alabama scored again, Texas wasn’t done. They scored again. 

Finally Texas got the ball back with 7:14 left to go in the game and they ran out the clock with 12 straight running plays. 

Think about how absurd that sentence would have been just two years ago. 

Steve Sarkisian promised three things when he was named the head football coach at Texas.  

“I want when people watch us play, that they’re proud of the brand of football we’re playing. It’s a physical brand of football, one built on toughness, one that is fast, one that is attacking.” 

He had that vision 32 months ago when he was hired.  

It is safe to say his vision is coming into focus. 

Texas attacked. Three fourth-quarter touchdowns and 176 yards of offense. Turtle Tom was nowhere to be seen. 

They were fast. Xavier Worthy and Adonai Mitchell blew by their defenders. Anthony Hill had his coming out party. 

And they were tough. Mentally tough with zero false starts in that that environment. And physically tough in that the rushing yards weren’t always there, but when the game needed to be put away, that off-season training in 105-degree temperatures brought it home. 

Great win. Now don’t let it define your season. 

This team, this program should have higher aspirations than a single win in September, no matter how lofty the hurdle was to get there. 

“Job’s not finished.” 

TCU –7.5 @ Houston: 

Houston prepared for their first Big 12 conference game by handing Rice their first win against a Power 5 team since 2013 and allowed J.T. Daniels to throw for 400 yards in the process.  

TCU should be able to take care of business here against a terrible Houston defense. 

TCU 38 Houston 23 

Tennessee –6.5 @ Florida: 

The Vols ended Florida’s five-game winning streak in this series last year, but losing 16 of 18 to an opponent means it could be a while since you won somewhere – Tennessee has won at Florida since 2003. 

The mood in Knoxville is antsy. The Vols had 27 passing plays of 40+ yards last season with Hendon Hooker. Hooker is off to the NFL and in his place is the guy he replaced, Joe Milton, the transfer from Michigan. 

Milton is famous on YouTube for one of those ridiculous stunts like being able to throw a ball 80 yards from his knees while Vol fans would just like him to be able to complete a simple out pattern. He was 1-of-8 passing for 11 yards at one-point last week in a lackluster win over Austin Peay, and the Tennessee offense only has one 40+ passing play thus far this season. 

The Vols are, however, third in defensive yards per play in the country, and they face here a Florida offense that may or may not have found something last week in a win over a ridiculous opponent when they rushed Montrell Johnson Jr and Trevor Etienne 26 times and they combined for 200+ yards and three touchdowns.  

Billy Napier desperately needs a win here, he’s 0-4 in his tenure against Florida rivals. 

Tennessee 34 Florida 27 

LSU –9.5 @ Mississippi State: 

The Mississippi State media guide tells us that new offensive coordinator Kevin Barbay is “one of the top young innovative minds in college football” and is “known as a master play caller”. Well then.  

Well, the issue is that Mississippi State has Will Rogers at quarterback, who has thrown for 11,000 yards in his career and 87 touchdowns, but they only gave him the chance to throw the ball 17 times last week in an overtime win over Arizona. The Bulldogs defense forced five turnovers in that game – but the Bulldogs were still in an overtime game with Arizona at home. 

LSU might have their issues (I don’t care how many points they had against Grambling last week), but I don’t think the Bulldogs have the guns to keep up if they shall fall behind. 

LSU 35 Mississippi State 23 

BYU @ Arkansas –8.5: 

Last year Arkansas loaded up the mobile home caravan and traveled to Provo, Utah where they dominated BYU, racking up 644 total yards in a 52-35 win. They might not be able to match that this year, however, as injuries on the offensive line and running back have depleted the Hogs just a bit. The Hogs don’t rank in the Top 100 in rushing this young season.  

K.J. Jefferson is back for his 16^th year under center for the Razorbacks. He has thrown for 6,200 yards and rushed for 1,500 yards in his Arkansas career, which started when he was rooming with Barry Foster.  

Meanwhile BYU averaged just 2 yards per carry against FCS opponent Southern Utah (I swear 95% of the teams I have researched this season have had at least one game against a FCS opponent. Shame, shame, shame!). The Cougars are averaging just 79 yards on the ground this season, 118^th out of 132 teams.  

Arkansas 38 BYU 24 

Oklahoma –27.5 @ Tulsa: 

What a barren desert of matchups this week when this game gets previewed. 

Lost in the fact that Oklahoma’s genius offensive coordinator Jeff Lebby thought it was a great idea to have his father-in-law Art Briles on the field after their game against SMU last week was the fact that this was a 14-11 game in fourth quarter. 

And the Sooners had less than 200 yards passing on the day (and were outgained by SMU on the day). Lebby was probably looking to bring Mel Tucker in for a special appearance, too. 

The Golden Hurricanes have had to use three quarterbacks on this young season due to injuries – they didn’t play that bad last week in Seattle against Washington – but I am not sure they can do that two weeks in a row. 

Oklahoma 44 Tulsa 13 

Wyoming @ Texas –29.5: 

This is the sixth meeting between the Longhorns and the Cowboys, with the Longhorns winning the previous five. The last meeting was a 37-17 Texas win in Austin in 2012; Joe Bergeron and Malcolm Brown both rushed for more than 100 yards that day.  

You’ve heard it all week – hey Wyoming beat Texas Tech – while that is technically true, they did it with a postgame win expectancy of 17%. They basically had the game handed to them by circumstance.  

They had 100 less yards. More turnovers. Were worse on third downs. The stadium they play in sits at 7,215 feet above sea level, the highest one in FBS football so they were able to outlast the Red Raiders. Plus that was the Red Raiders. 

This is Texas. 

Wyoming is going to have to try to ground and pound the Longhorns – they held the ball for 35 minutes against Tech, they’ll need to go upwards of 40 against Texas. And while they certainly favor a running attack that would be necessary to perform such a feat, they are also facing one of the best defensive lines in the country. 

If that tactic is unsuccessful, then the Cowboys will need to turn to quarterback Andrew Peasley, a six-year senior who started his career at Utah State. However, Peasely makes Jalen Milroe look like Joe Burrow as he’s only completed 53% of his career passing attempts, has only thrown for as many as 200 yards twice in his Wyoming career and averaged just 4.4 yards per attempt against Texas Tech.  

The Cowboys have a Mountain West-hot defense (think of being on a cross-country Greyhound trip and you sit next to a girl who becomes better looking around mile 400...she’s “across the country on a bus-hot" because you might not give her a second glance in another situation).  

They have some talent in the front seven that could play in this conference. In fact, they have yet to give up 100 yards rushing in a game this season, but Tech’s abandoned the run so much they have played this season like Tyler Shough is Ricky Williams and Portland State is...well, Portland State. They also have a kicker that’s good enough to be an All-American candidate, so perhaps if they can kick 13 field goals, they have a shot. 

The Cowboys finished 7-6 last season and with a slightly better squad this season, they are hoping to reach 9 wins for the first time since 1996. They’ll have to look elsewhere other than this week.  

Texas 42 Wyoming 10 

For entertainment purposes only.  Save your money for “we beat Wyoming” shirts at the Co-op.