The Hangover Cure: Week 9

Their defense stifled Zac Robinson all day and Kendall Hunter when they needed to, and the offense kept the ball long enough at the end of the game to make a comeback preposterous. Oklahoma State may be the most balanced team Texas has played, and they certainly played the best defensive game anyone has against the Longhorns all year. As good as they were, though, Texas was better.

There’s something about this team, the sort of moxie that flows out of a few leaders on either side of the ball, the sort of poise that makes the team better when the game is closer. And as this team proves itself time and again against some of the best teams in the country, in comeback and blowout and clenched-teeth fashion, Texas gets closer and closer to South Beach.

American Boy

No quarterback has been better for his team than Colt McCoy has been for Texas than, perhaps, Ken Dorsey was for Miami early this decade.

McCoy is a playmaker with pinpoint accuracy, a gunner who understands the importance of not throwing interceptions. He’s poised in any situation, mobile enough to avoid pressure, and is the emotional center of his offense. He’s the best quarterback in the conference with the best quarterbacks, the best player on the best team in the country. He doesn’t have the arm of Stafford, the physique of Tebow, the speed of Pryor, the height of Harrell, or the motion of Bradford.

It doesn’t matter. Colt McCoy is better than all of them, and it’s partly because, interception and second-half fumble on Saturday set aside, he doesn’t make mistakes. He’s about the best game manager a team could have, and he’s proficient in the other realms of offense (scrambling, throwing deep) that help him make plays while he’s letting Texas’ talent make plays.

He’s going to win the Heisman, barring injury or Hindenberg-level crash. He’s going to lead a team to the Big 12 Championship and perhaps a national championship, unless Texas Tech can score with the ‘Horns next week or a Big 12 North team can find a shipment of talent somewhere in the next month.

But, beyond all that, he’s definitely got the name for the part.

College football is just better when one of the biggest names for the Texas Longhorns is as Texas as Colt McCoy.

Paper Planes

Dynasties are fragile things. Ask Tennessee and Michigan.

The rain kept falling on the Vols and Wolverines on Saturday, in losses to Alabama, which choked the life out of Neyland Stadium with a punishing, methodical demolition in an SEC grinder, and to Michigan State, which rode Javon Ringer for almost 200 yards and avenged a half-dozen losses to the Maize and Blue this decade.

Michigan looks like a lock to miss a bowl for the first time since alum Gerald Ford was President; Tennessee has yet to score more than 14 points against an SEC team not named Mississippi State, and is staring an eight- or nine-loss season in the face if their offensive ineptitude lingers.

Just ten years ago, Tennessee was a year removed from Peyton Manning’s brilliance, and Michigan was the defending national champion; Big Blue had Charles Woodson in its immediate past, and “Rocky Top” was going to be played for a national championship not long from then.

And now, their banners are in tatters, their fan bases are angry, and coaches have burned through their goodwill or are trying to do so in one season.

It doesn’t take much rain to make a paper plane go down.

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