Here’s a question for you: If the pre-season coaches poll put the University of Texas Longhorns football team at number 4 in the nation, how much do coaches really know about football? One would have to wonder, given the depths that this team has sunk to over the past few weeks.
At least the AP poll had them at number 5 – maybe sports writers do know more about football than the coaches do. This is something they have maintained for years!
Better yet, let’s extend this thinking a bit further. If the polls are obviously so skewed from reality (we can thank the Longhorns for making that readily apparent), then how can we use their “collective wisdom” in the BCS rankings when they obviously have no relationship to much of anything?
And with that in mind, I’m left with all of the questions surrounding the Longhorns this season, and, more specifically, the questions of coaching or lack thereof on this squad. Or how about the lack of pride – or perhaps the sense of entitlement - displayed on field? Or how about a combination of the two?
It probably goes without saying that the last two weeks for the Longhorns have been the next closest thing to abysmal. Actually, it extends far beyond the last two weeks. The roots are far deeper than that.
Sanity sure does seem to be a relative term these days. More often than not, truth has become far stranger (and perhaps crazier) than fiction itself. With this in mind, this Rumination delves into some of the more insane things that have been on the newsroom highlight reels over the past few weeks. It never ceases to amaze me what has become acceptable in our world these days – the times, they are a changin’!
#1: Insane football factoid: Did you know that since Urban Meyer became the head football coach at the University of Florida in 2005, there have been 30 arrests of football team players? The most recent was receiver Chris Rainey this past September. I’ve been known to complain about the occasional early season arrest of a Longhorn in Austin, be we don’t even hold a candle to this statistic. There was a time not so long ago when the University of Miami would have garnered the biggest rap sheet. I guess that the University of Florida is just trying to keep the honors in-state.
Of course, illegal behavior as a collegian only seems to have fostered the same in the pro ranks. I would like to think that college coaches would take a greater role in the personal development of their athletes – but that might be expecting a lot of a coach making $4 million a year.
But wait, there’s more craziness in this Rumination …
Much as the trees change color in the fall season, the Texas Longhorns have also changed color – from top 5 BCS contender to not-yet bowl eligible – in the month of Red October.
What a difference a month can make – and it’s still not over. For all intents and purposes, October has been as bad as I’d projected. After the UCLA loss at home, it looked like October had the potential to be abysmal at best. And guess what? When Mack Brown calls it “unacceptable”, well, imagine what the fans think.
It has become readily apparent that the #5 pre-season ranking was a little, how would you say it, over-rated. And there have been a laundry list of problems to contend with in the meantime. I would have thought at the start of the season that Texas would have at least 3 losses this season, most of which would come from the month of October. If you had to decide who Texas would be beaten by in the month of October – Oklahoma (at Dallas), Nebraska (at Lincoln), or Iowa State (at home) – which teams would you have selected?
Oklahoma? Maybe. Nebraska? Especially Nebraska with a chip on it’s shoulder? Sure. But Iowa State? Are you kidding me?
I’ve not posted anything on Red October thus far because, well, I think the worst is yet to come - and with that in mind, why write two separate agonizing reports on losses to both OU and Nebraska? There is the possibility, strange as it may sound right now, that the Longhorns will pull the upset in Lincoln this weekend against the over-rated Children of the Corn. Over-rated, you say? They’ve beaten Western Kentucky, Idaho, Washington, KSU, and, oh yeah South Dakota State (by a stunning 17 – 3 margin) – so I wouldn’t exactly say they have been that impressive thus far. What this weekend may amount to is the Longhorns simply being worse than the degree to which Nebraska is over-rated!
But amongst all of the drama that surrounds this weekend’s game and the departure of Nebraska from the Big 12, perhaps there is even more drama behind the scenes. The question is this: where is DJ Monroe?
The answer to this question is beginning to look like it could be the basis for an Oliver Stone docu-drama. One has to wonder about it, given that he’s one of the most dynamic players that the Longhorns have, on a team that is in need of something dynamic. Maybe it’s a conspiracy? We all love a good conspiracy, especially Oliver Stone.
The party line right now – according to DJ and offensive coordinator Greg Davis – is that “he doesn’t know the playbook”. But I would suggest that perhaps there is more to this than we have been lead to believe.
People, places, events – they are the fabric, the storyline, the timeline - of our being. When music is an important part of your world, as it has been mine over the years, it has an especially important role in how I view the timeline of my existence. Music has a way of weaving itself into the fabric of our lives. I can reflect on a piece of music - my own or another musician’s work – and have a vivid association with an event, a memory, a feeling, a moment in time. I recently unearthed some archives of music I’d recorded over the years. I made many rudimentary recordings of most of my early gigs (coffeehouses and the like), along with songs and chord progressions that I have written over the years. It’s a veritable timeline of my own personal history. Music – and the associated Milestones and Memories of my world.
As I immersed myself in these archives, I stumbled across a tape of a gig I played at a club called “Shadows” on Volente Road at 2222, a stone’s throw from Lake Travis. The date was April 27, 1991. Listening to this performance brought back that timeline of milestones and memories.
Let’s start with a simple premise in the world of health care – if you can’t understand the patient’s problem, then it makes it pretty hard to provide a patient with an effective solution. I think that all clinicians would agree with this premise. Taking another step forward on this line of thought - in order to solve the problem, you need to be able to think, to reason, to “connect the dots” of your thinking, and to do so logically and based on good, sound data. I don’t think that’s much of a quantum leap in thinking either.
Sadly, this is not the clinical reality that patients experience – with physicians, with chiropractors, with massage therapists, with physical therapists, or with countless other clinicians.
That’s a strong statement that may require some explanation.
Saturday, September 25 – a day that will live in Longhorn infamy as “Rout 66: The Sequel”.
If you’re a Horn’s fan, you will probably remember the fateful day in 1997 when the UCLA Bruins came to Austin and pounded the Horns 66 – 3. It’s one of those days you just don’t forget.
Fortunately, I was out of town that weekend, so I missed all the live game angst. But I do remember watching the score scroll across the bottom of the screen on ESPN thinking that surely it must have been a typo. The previous season they had surprised Nebraska in the Big 12 Championship, and 1997 was to build upon that success. But after we were “Bruined” that year, everything fell apart and the Longhorns went 4 – 7. John Mackovic, the Texas coach, was gone by season’s end. Of course, that was also the beginning of the Mack Brown era at Texas. So good things did come of it.
Fast forward 13 years. And with a 34 – 12 beat-down yesterday, we’ve just witnessed another epic Longhorn meltdown for the ages. Sure, there were a lot of plays missed by players. Poor execution. Dropped passes. The receiving corps still has yet to find a “step up and take charge on third and long” receiver – especially since we seem to find ourselves in that situation a lot lately.
But, in the end, the coaching staff has to be accountable. Much like 1997, perhaps this will (or should, at least) lead to more shake-ups within the coaching staff. And I don’t mean Mack Brown.
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