As the Season Rots Away

I saw the rotting pile this morning. Their orange skin seemed to be melting. The insides were full of black, furry fungus. A few weeks ago they were bright orange Halloween pumpkins waiting to be carved into jack-o'-lanterns or used as a backdrop for pics of smiling children. Now they were a pile of goo. I can think of no better metaphor for the UT football team.

Once full of promise, the Horns are festering. Coach Mack Brown comes right out and gives his team and coaches an F. I got an e-mail this week offering cut-rate $25 tickets to the upcoming home game against supposed patsy Florida Atlantic. Fair-weather fans are fleeing the rotting burnt-orange corpse of a preseason No. 5 team that last year played (and lost) in the national championship game.

Garrett Gilbert — who has absorbed his share of vitriol while playing solidly if not spectacularly this season — stunk it up against Kansas State 39-14 last week. Three plays, three interceptions? The boo birds are out and calling for a real McCoy. If they can't have Colt, they'll take his little brother Case. But could a change at QB stop the decay?

Welcome Oklahoma State, a team coached by Crazy Mike Gundy, the guy who always seems to find a way to lose to Texas. This year a Longhorn win looks about as likely as someone shelling out cash for those rotting pumpkins. But here's the scary post-Halloween truth: Texas must beat the Cowboys to have a nonlosing season. No, I don't mean winning. At 4-5 Texas will be lucky — very lucky — to win two of its last three games. Florida Atlantic isn't a sure thing this year (has any game been?), but it's close to it. The season ends with the Aggies, who played well enough to beat an erratic Oklahoma team last week. Almost as well as 8-1 Oklahoma State.

The Cowboys have found the potent offense Texas has seen slip away. Gundy's gunners have both a 1,000-yard rusher in Kendall Hunter and a 1,000-yard receiver in Justin Blackmon. OSU quarterback Brandon Weedon is on track to throw for 3,000 yards this season. This is a team that crushed the upstart Baylor Bears 55-28. Yes, the same Baylor team that defeated Texas. The Cowboys are in control of their own destinies. Knock off shattered former powerhouses Texas and OU and the Big 12 is theirs.

Meanwhile Gilbert has thrown more interceptions than touchdowns (14 to seven). His receivers aren't getting any separation, forcing Gilbert to throw into tight spots. When he does get the ball to them, they seem more likely to tip it into the air than catch it. The ballyhooed resurgence of the running game is no longer even a topic of discussion with Fozzy Whittaker and Tre' Newton both unlikely to suit up Saturday.

The defense that Brown — in those early season shiny new days — dubbed the best he'd seen at Texas is in tatters. Yes, they've forced as many turnovers as last year at this point — 25. But the Texas D has seldom been able to recover the ball. The rush defense has become so porous that opponents are not even bothering to pass the ball. Chykie Brown is out for the season.

Yet, there couldn't be a more perfect game for the Horns to come back from the dead. Texas hasn't lost to OSU since 1997, which is not-so-coincidentally the last time a Texas team stunk this much. If the Cowboys beat Texas, they will have to run the table on the Big 12's Texas schools. But Gundy has a history of finding failure in every success. Can Texas find some life amid the burnt orange rot this Saturday? It's unlikely, but so was the win the Horns carved out against Nebraska, three scary losses ago.