It doesn't mean much, but Robert Smith had Texas as a preseason #4 on ESPN this morning. He seemed to really like our young group of RB's and was impressed with Ash in the bowl game. Like I said, it doesn't mean much, but it is what it is. Per R. Smith: 1. LSU 2. USC 3. UGA 4. UT 5. Clemson
If the offensive line and wide receivers continue their stellar play and Ash maintains his late season form, I could see us as high as 3, or possibly even 2. If not, I would probably have to drop us to around 5.
I had to go to Wikipedia to figure out who Robert Smith is, and he wasn't even the first Robert Smith listed, but I appreciate his ranking
Goose, he's on TV quite a bit. You need to watch more sports programming, especially when talking heads are yapping (Just messin' with ya). As you probably saw on Wiki, he was pretty well known for complaining that the OSU coaches didn't allow him enough time to concentrate on academics.
Didn't see that one coming from Robert Smith. if i remember correctly, he's been pretty critical of our program.
Let's not forget our schedule. There's only one game I can think of in which we should be definite underdogs - and that's OU. We could end up #4 without being the #4 team in the country - if that makes sense.
Someone mentioned we are following the Alabama blueprint, sorry but the LSU blueprint might be more like it.
I'm sorry but where did this myth of Ash's late season form (being good?) come from? I personally saw nothing to make me expect big things from him next year.
The D certainly merits that kind of preseason ranking. The O certainly has the tools and the potential, but they are still a work in progress. They should be much better in year two of the Harsin / Applewhite offense. OL is clearly talented but they are young, need more experience & need to get stronger - Walters (soph) even said that about himself. Espinoza (frosh) needs to get stronger as he got pushed around some. Cockran (frosh) stepped in for Allen and played pretty well. Hopkins started as a Soph. Snow was the only Sr. that started the later half of the season... thankfully Trey Allen is GONE! WR - there's Shipley but we need DJ to watch more film so he can play and for Mike Davis to catch the damn ball. QB - Ash looks like the starter today... but there are still questions at this position. RB - were well stocked... when they are healthy and J. Gray is coming.
I've wondered something that might be relevant on this thread. Pretty much every Big 12 defense is geared to stop the spread offense. Though, we run a version of the spread w/ Harsin, how many defenses would be able to stop a true, pound it running game? If the line improves - which it should. The RBs improve - which they should. Receivers improve - which they should. QB improves - which it should. TE becomes existent - which it should. Why can't this offense make leaps and bounds in terms of improvement?
Here's the more traditional media counterpoint...Mark Schlabach's "way too early top 25" has us at #21. This is closer to where I think we'll start in the polls. Interestingly, he has us at #6 in the B12. That's 6th out of 10! My over-under for pre-season ranking is 14. Steve
I love my Longhorns and I"m a big homer like the next guy, but what are you dudes smoking that would even begin to believe that we should justify a top 5 pre-season ranking next year? I could care less where we start, it's where we finish, but top 5 to start the season, that's laughable. Where we finished at the end of this season is about where we should reasonably expect to be ranked going into next season.
I think it's safe to expect our defense to be every bit as good as it looked vs aggie and Berkeley. That's a top3 defense. Our offense should be a little better than we ended the season as Ash should improve from spring-summer snaps (I'm not saying a lot) while Shipley, Joe, & Malcolm will be healthy and a little stronger. Then J Gray should get us back to where we were at with Fozzy as the 3rd back. We still need another WR to man up (Goodwin, Caleb, Harris, dgb?) and the OL to get stronger for us to make a huge improvement but even baby steps will help. Our schedule should be slightly weaker with 3 non conference walkovers and RG3 and Weeden gone. WV-TCU is an upgrade to Mizzu-aggie however and sweeping them is unlikely without big help from our offense. I see 8-4 or 9-3 as reasonable and top15
All of you thinking this is a top 5 program again are smokin' some serious dope. Take a look at the top 25 this year. 10 wins was the norm. This team probably doesn't have 10 wins in it next year.
If we beat OU then we can even begin to discuss top 5. Until then let's just try to complete a forward pass.
I would guess 9-3 and I'd be happy with that. O-line and WR's need a lot of improvement to get to the top 10. It's true that UT is improving while some other teams will be rebuilding but a lot of teams have to fall a long way for a top 5 finish.
