Longhorns get lucky (but we'll take it)!!!

"The horse is prepared for the day of battle,
But deliverance is of the Lord."
Proverbs 21:31

[Author's Note: Obviously, we've been offline for a couple days, but we have some thoughts on Sunday night's game we haven't seen elsewhere in the media.]

On Sunday night, the optimistic case for Longhorn football took a meaningful step forward.  Nevertheless, sensible fans should resist irrational exuberance with the same vigor with which we resisted irrational despair last season.  The program remains a work in progress, and defeating Notre Dame doesn't change the fact that it's going to be two steps forward/one step back.

While the final result was spectacular, there was too much sloppy play during the fourth quarter.  Several drives were killed by stupid penalties; while we don't intend to pick on him specifically, a chop block from Patrick Vahe comes to mind.  Freshman Center Zach Shackelford muffed two snaps.  Without those mistakes, overtime could have been avoided.  Then, of course, there was this [Author's Note: LANGUAGE Warning]:



The extra point that Notre Dame ran back for a safety gave us nightmare flashbacks to the missed extra point against Cal last year.  Making matters worse, it was obvious 20 seconds prior to the play that the extra point was going to be a disaster.  Another sloppy play without which overtime would have been unnecessary.

But enough negativity.  While ignoring the sloppy play in the fourth quarter helps no one, the more important takeaway is that the Longhorns nevertheless ground out a win.  As Charlie Strong said in his press conference yesterday, this is a textbook example of the type of game the Longhorns lost last year.

We used the phrase "warm knife through butter" to describe the offense early.  Shane Buchele led a crisp passing attack that, when combined with the grind it out running game, put the team in a position to win late.  We had a pretty good view of Buchele's first career touchdown pass to Armanti Foreman:



One more note: Malik Jefferson is an absolute beast!!!  He was in the middle of every important play on defense.  TV doesn't do justice to the amount of the field he's able to cover on a regular basis.

Bottom Line: It's important to stay calm and take things one game at a time, but things are moving in the right direction.

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Status quo crowd: Governor Abbott, Chancellor McRaven, and President Fenves pose for photos before kickoff; gee, we wonder why we weren't invited to that conversation?!? :D

Our co-worker Austin Willis manning the sideline.