Tom Herman’s Job Safe for One More Week After Baylor Win
It has been two weeks since Texas played their last football game. After their four-overtime loss in the Red River Showdown against Oklahoma, the last two weeks have been going about as well as sitting in traffic on I-35 for Longhorn fans.
Head coach Tom Herman has been the hot topic of conversation after Texas was sitting at 2-2 and could have very easily been 0-3 in Big 12 play if not for a miracle comeback in Lubbock. Is Tom Herman the right man to run the ship? Will Texas ever get over the hump and be officially “back”? All questions that were asked during the Longhorns time off since early October.
However, Tom Herman’s job status was not the only thing making headlines in Austin as “The Eyes of Texas” fiasco has been a highly debated issue as well. Between band members not wanting to play the song, and big money donors wanting it to be played, there was no live music to be found at Darrell K. Royal Stadium on Saturday as the band was absent from the game.
On top of all this, there was still a football game to be played on Saturday against Baylor. And early on, Texas looked like a team that was not prepared. After one full quarter of play, Baylor led 3-0. During those first fifteen minutes, the Longhorns offense put up a whopping 37 yards as quarterback Sam Ehlinger had a just a single passing yard on two attempts.
Eventually, the offense found their footing in the second quarter. Kicker Cameron Dicker nailed two field goals to give Texas a 6-3 before the first touchdown of the game was scored when Sam Ehlinger hit Joshua Moore to put Texas up 13-3 at the half.
Surprisingly as bad as Texas has been in third quarters, the Longhorns kept their head on straight and were able to add two more scores thanks to Sam Ehlinger’s legs.
Heading into the fourth quarter, Texas was up 27-3 and were on a 24-0 run. And while Baylor was down big, they did not quit as Charlie Brewer hit John Lovett for a short touchdown pass (failed two point try) to cut the Texas lead to 18 with 11:24 left to play.
On the very next possession, Sam Ehlinger throw a costly interception and the Bears were able to capitalize as Charlie Brewer found Gavin Holmes for a touchdown to make it a 27-16 ball game. But give the Texas defense some credit, they kept Baylor in check late to secure the win.
Outside of the fourth quarter, the Longhorns defense played extremely well for three full quarters. They held Baylor to under 70 rushing yards and were able to put pressure on quarterback Charlie Brewer all game long. As for the offense, Texas still needs to work out some issues, and frankly, that time should have been during the two weeks off.
Texas forced themselves to run the football on Saturday and piled up 49 carries for 159 yards. Baylor is by no means is any sort of threat to win a Big 12 title, but this was a much-needed win for Texas to cool off Tom Herman’s seat.
Winning can cure a lot of issues. Despite what some may think, if Texas were 5-0 right now, would any of these off-field topics be happening? I seriously doubt it. But that is not the case as they sit at 3-2. Oh, and by the way, they have a matchup with Oklahoma State next weekend in Stillwater. While the Tom Herman hot seat may be chilled for one week, by this time next week it could be as hot as a Texas summer day.
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