Texas Football: Realistic Expectations for the Longhorns' 2015 Season

Trying to improve on last year's 6-7 record will be tough for Charlie Strong, whose Longhorn team still has issues at quarterback and lost a bunch of starters from the 2014 squad.

It's up to the Texas fanbase to show patience, because Strong is more than capable of engineering this turnaround. Because when you look at the schedule and what this team lacks, it's unrealistic to expect anything more than modest improvement.

Last season, the Horns' troubles stemmed from an inexperienced offensive line and a passing attack that ranked dead last in the Big 12, according to cfbstats.com. Those are still question marks, and this year the offense won't have the benefit of one of the conference's best defenses.

Of the 10 starters the Horns lost this offseason, six belonged to the defense. Of those six, four were selected in this past weekend's NFL draft, and the other two signed free-agent deals.

That's real talent Strong has to replace with few options along the back seven, as you can see below:

The defensive line has some depth, but the linebackers and defensive backs could have as many as six freshmen in the two-deep, with the lone starter being freak show Malik Jefferson. That says great things about Strong's recruiting efforts, but there's no reason to believe this group will simply pick up where its predecessors left off.

Therefore, Texas' offense, which averaged just 21.4 points per game in 2014, will have to pick up slack. Based on what we saw in the spring game, that's a dubious proposition.

The offensive line looked good enough running a scheme that more fits Joe Wickline's philosophy. However, the all-important quarterback situation looks as murky as ever.

Tyrone Swoopes and Jerrod Heard both got off to hot starts in last month's scrimmage, each scoring rushing touchdowns on their opening drives. Then both slowed down considerably, and the offenses combined for just one touchdown the rest of the way.

In the end, it was Heard who was more impressive. The redshirt freshman is the more explosive runner and made up enough ground on the experienced Swoopes for 247Sports' Jeff Howe to project him as the starter next season.

As exciting as it might be to see a player as dynamic as Heard running the offense, he's still a raw player as a redshirt freshman. Even in a best-case scenario, he's going to have some rough outings, just as Colt McCoy did when he took the reins in 2006.

Adding all of that up, it will be extremely difficult for Texas to finish much better than it did last season as a middle-of-the-pack team in this conference.

Per PhilSteele.com, the Horns will play nine teams that return as many or more starters than they do in 2015. Of those teams, only Oklahoma and West Virginia will have serious quarterback battles, while depleted Kansas State always finds a way to compete.

Given that Notre Dame returns a ridiculous 19 starters and will be at home when it faces Texas in the opener, the Horns' No. 6 post-spring ranking (according to Bleacher Report's Ben Kercheval) puts them in line for another five to seven losses in 2015.

Date	Opponent	Result	Record
9/5	at Notre Dame	L	0-1
9/12	Rice	W	1-1
9/19	California	W	2-1
9/26	Oklahoma State	L	2-2
10/3	at TCU	L	2-3
10/10	Oklahoma (Dallas, TX)	L	2-4
10/24	Kansas State	W	3-4
10/31	at Iowa State	W	4-4
11/7	Kansas	W	5-4
11/14	at West Virginia	L	5-5
11/26	Texas Tech	W	6-5
12/5	Baylor	L	6-6

Yes, that would be the fourth time in five seasons, which is as bad as anything we saw from John Mackovic.

But it's important that fans and the powers that be keep their faith in Strong. The second-year head coach pulled in 2015's No. 10 recruiting class (per 247Sports), had nine more of his Louisville recruits drafted into the pros and, most importantly, his new team fully bought in last season.

The fact remains that this program was going through the motions for at least four years before Strong got ahold of it. This was always going to be a complete and total rebuild rather than a one-year turnaround.

Strong had a similar rebuild when he took over at Louisville, going 7-6 in his first two seasons. Then he went 23-3 the rest of the way to earn his shot at Texas.

So as long as the effort is there from Strong's team, everyone can handle one more year of mediocrity.

Unless otherwise noted, all stats and information courtesy of TexasSports.com.