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Texas 42, Texas Tech 7

The view from Section 108 on Saturday was outstanding. The game wasn't bad, either.

That one was for TornJock.

On with the show.

As tune-ups go, the Longhorns had one on Saturday that Mr. Goodwrench would die for. Smooth, efficient offense. New-look defense with mostly strong results. Hard-hitting, difference-making special teams. Easily the best September performance by any Mack Brown-coached Texas team.

Now it's October. Wad it all up and toss it away. Dan Jenkins once described the games Texas and Oklahoma played before their annual showdown as "just so much throat-clearing."

Time to perform for real now.

What last week's victory may have done more than anything else was give the Longhorns a swagger that actually can be justified. Much throat-clearing has been going on in recent days about Mack Brown's comments to the effect that Texas did not take Oklahoma seriously enough last season and paid for it. From the Sooner Nation, roughly as in tune with reality as the Afghani Nation, comes the pronouncement that Texas was looking past OU to Colorado or Missouri. That's roughly akin to saying 2 + 2 = 5, which might earn you an "A" in an Oklahoma classroom but still would be no less wrong.

Everyone involved with the University of Texas program was deeply and bitterly embarrassed by last year's outcome. It did not take the ghost of Vince Lombardi to ascertain that the Longhorns, from head coach to lowest-on-the-depth-chart scrub, were thoroughly outprepared in every way. The Longhorns entered with a swagger, all right, but it came more from immaturity and faith that the results of the previous three Texas-OU games would somehow repeat themselves than from any real confidence. It did not take long for that notion to be disabused.

No Texas player ever had lost to OU. The Texas staff as a whole never had lost to OU. No individual Texas coach had been part of a loss to OU since Carl Reese in his Missouri days back in the late '80s. Get the picture? It was an unbelievable collective gaffe based largely on unfounded overconfidence.

It's one that won't be repeated.

I am not about to come out here and boldly predict a guaranteed Texas win; I can't see into the future any better than anyone else, even though I am on record as picking Texas, 31-24. But I can say, without fear of reasonable argument, that lack of preparation won't be a problem.

Lack of motivation obviously won't be an issue, either. I actually came away from last year's game with a certain, grudging respect for OU ... until I saw that damned team photo with the scoreboard in the background and the "horns-down" sign on nearly every red-clad hand. And while I refuse to diminish the Sooners' main accomplishment last season — chiefly, that they were the first OU team to win a national championship without a long-term payment plan — I cannot get that image out of my mind. It's time to slap Bob Stoops' smug face and remind him and his staff how a loss feels. I don't care if it's by 1 or 100 points.

There are ways to do it, and many were demonstrated last week — not just by Texas, but by Kansas State as well. K-State physically manhandled OU; it is, in fact, a credit to the Sooners' will to win that they even pulled that one out. But the reality is this: OU's offense has, relatively speaking, impressed no one. Its defense is outstanding, particularly at linebacker, but the line and secondary, while talented, are thin. Its special teams are first-rate and could be the difference makers in a close game.

If Texas takes care of business, however, it shouldn't be one.

I'd say the greatest mistake in terms of overconfidence last year came when OU went up 14-0 in a hurry. I guarantee you that every Texas fan, player and coach thought the same thing: Hell, it was 17-0 last year and we wound up kicking their asses over the final three quarters. Rather than turning their game up a notch, the Longhorns sat back and waited for OU to self-destruct. Didn't happen. More than anything, however, it highlighted a trend that already had begun and continued through the rest of the season, though obviously not to the same degree: the dreaded slow start.

We saw 'em the first two weeks this season, too, but the past two weeks have been different. More resolve. More variety. You can tell that the parts are starting to mesh, though anyone who thinks "we're there!" yet is out of his or her mind. But there seems to be more of a realization among the offensive play-callers that "getting a feel for the game" doesn't always work. Sometimes, it's best to come right out and put your own brand on it and go from there. Against most teams, we have the talent to afford a slow start, knowing that the opponent will be physically worn down by the fourth quarter. This ain't one of those opponents.

At the same time, I have seen enough football to know that many a team has come out for a game so sky-high that by halftime, they're completely drained. We have no shortage of emotional players, and much has been made of the tendency by the defense in particular to celebrate every big play as if it were the game-winning stop in the Rose Bowl. There has to be a balance this week, or half the team will be burned out by the time the OU band takes the field after the second quarter. I'd love nothing more than to see the Longhorns walk, grim-faced, down the tunnel and onto the field Saturday. A slow, momentum-building walk that echoes the famous pre-1964 Cotton Bowl line from Darrell Royal: "We're ready."

Anyone who believes OU is invincible is dead wrong. No team is so good that it never can lose. With 17 straight wins, the Sooners carry into the game an aura that says they'll find a way. But will that be enough against a talented, motivated opponent still smarting from the events of a year past?

Stay tuned. And clear your throats, because those not in full voice on Saturday will be in the distinct minority. I'll be in Section 15, likely hoarse by the middle of the first quarter, but yelling my guts out all the same. It's time to leave a reminder that 63-14, not 8-3-1 over the past 12 years, is the fluke.