There are few programs in college athletics -- if any at all -- that have the resources to win quite like Texas does. So it’s understandably head-scratching that the Longhorns haven’t even shared a Big 12 title in football since the 2009-10 season that ended in a BCS championship appearance against Alabama.
Texas looks to be on the upswing after an Alamo Bowl win over Oregon State to finish 9-4. Speaking with the Austin-American Statesman -- which is a well-done interview from Kirk Bohls -- UT athletic director DeLoss Dodds promised a return to more familiar territory with its athletics program -- but not without doing so at the expense of Missouri.
“We’re going to have good years again,” Dodds told the paper. “Our bad years are not that bad. Take a school like Missouri. Our bad years are better than their good years. But we’ve created a standard.”
Traditonally, there’s probably merit to that statement, but it’s hard to agree as much in recent years, especially in football. Missouri won its final game against the Longhorns for the foreseeable future 17-5 in Columbia last season -- and that was far from the Tigers’ best year.
We’d also be remiss if we didn’t bring up Oklahoma, Texas’ biggest rival and the program the Longhorns should be most concerned about beating year in and year out. Recently, the Sooners have owned Texas in football, winning by an average of 40 points the past two games. Meanwhile, Mizzou beat OU in 2010 36-27 and went on to a 10-3 season. UT went 5-7 that same year. So there’s at least an exception to Dodds’ statement.
But how important is the Red River game to Mack Brown‘s job security?
“Oh, we don’t think that way,” Dodds said.
Brown is 6-9 against OU in his 15 years in Austin. Not terrible, but obviously not where Texas wants to be. The good thing about Texas is that it has the capability to get back on top of the Big 12 quicker than most programs, and 2013 is a critical year for Brown and the Longhorns.
More often than not, Texas’ bad years may be better than Missouri’s good years, but that’s not the comparison anybody in Austin should want to make right now.