Texas Longhorns Can Forget About Making a Bowl Game in 2015

After a sluggish 6-7 debut season in 2014, the Texas Longhorns and head coach Charlie Strong hoped to take a big step forward in 2015.

Instead, it’s clear that the Longhorns have taken a major step back.

A 38-3 season-opening loss at Notre Dame set the tone for the season, and Saturday’s 50-7 blowout defeat at No. 4 TCU only reinforced that perception.

At 1-4 (Texas' worst start since 1956), the Longhorns and Strong won’t make a bowl game this season, and Longhorn fans should prepare themselves for the situation to get worse before it gets better.

Saturday’s ugly effort showed that possibility is a major reality.

Following the blowout at Notre Dame, Strong’s team actually showed progress after he stripped Shawn Watson of play-calling duties, installed Jerrod Heard as the starting quarterback and moved to a more uptempo scheme.

Eric Gay/Associated Press

The Longhorns pushed a pair of current Top 25 teams in Cal and Oklahoma State hard before special teams mistakes proved their undoing. Only a missed extra point kept Texas from taking Cal to overtime, and the Cowboys took advantage of a terrible left-footed punt late to squeak out a 30-27 victory last week.

Saturday, however, was a major setback. Texas was never competitive against the Horned Frogs, allowing an early touchdown, sailing a punt snap into its own end zone for a safety and shanking a punt that led to another score and a quick 16-0 lead. It never got much better from there with a 37-0 halftime deficit.

Heard struggled against an injury-depleted TCU defense that barely survived Texas Tech’s Air Raid attack a week earlier. 

How bad was it? Per Houston radio host John Lopez, Texas defensive back Kris Boyd retweeted a plea from a Texas A&M fan asking him to transfer. At halftime.

It makes you wonder: Where can Texas find more wins this season? It won’t be easy. The only sure things left on the slate are an Oct. 31 trip to Iowa State (which doesn’t appear significantly improved from a 2-10 record in 2014) and a Nov. 7 visit from Kansas (the worst Power Five team).

Even then, it should be noted that Iowa State pushed the Longhorns to the wire last fall in Austin before falling, 48-45.

The rest of the schedule looks foreboding. Next week brings the Red River Rivalry against a resurgent Oklahoma team, followed by Oct. 24’s visit from a typically solid Kansas State team.

November brings a trip to West Virginia’s high-powered offense before the Longhorns finish the season against Texas Tech and Baylor, which look like difficult games right now.

Since 1999, Texas has only missed a bowl game once, with a 5-7 record in 2010, the season after its last national title game appearance. That was the beginning of the end of the Mack Brown era.

2015 looks far worse. If they put forward more efforts like Saturday’s, the Longhorns will struggle to reach four wins.

Strong was hired to change the culture in Austin and imbue a sense of toughness often missing under Brown’s watch. But with athletic director Steve Patterson, the man who hired him, forced out, Strong could find himself on notice far more quickly than anyone had imagined in Austin.

He and his team will likely have plenty of extra time to figure out how to fix things this holiday season.