The bye week for the Texas Longhorns couldn’t come at a better time.
“We’ve got to get healthy and get fresh in the minds of our players,” Texas head coach Steve Sarkisian said this week.
The bye week will give the Longhorns time to heal, especially safety Michael Taaffe and wide receiver Ryan Wingo.
But it’s not just the players who need a breather as well.
“Seasons can be a grind, and so we’ve got to make sure that we’re doing the right things from a staff perspective, of being healthy, getting ourselves fresh for this month of November,” said Sarkisian.
Just over a month ago, after Texas lost on the road to Florida, I wrote the season off, asking if it was time to focus on next year.
In fact, I probably went a little too far when I wrote this:
“Sure, technically, the Longhorns could still win the SEC, make the playoffs and even win a national championship. But when you start talking about technicalities like that, you’re back in Aggy territory.”
The crazy thing is, I really wasn’t that far off when I wrote that. Had Texas stumbled along the way (like in either of the overtime games against Kentucky or Mississippi State), then the team’s goals heading into this season (SEC title, CFP bid and national championship) would all be off the table now.
But the Horns haven’t stumbled yet and they are definitely still in the race to play for an SEC title and a college football playoff berth. But if we learned anything from the first release of the CFP rankings, it’s that the Horns are still walking a high-wire with no margin for error.
Texas is currently sitting 11th in the rankings and still on the outside looking in.
The Horns will either prove they are worthy of being a playoff team or they won’t. It’s completely in their own hands.
