Hornography

Don't invite Charlie Strong to your Thanksgiving dinner. He probably wouldn't accept your weird, stalkerish invitation anyway. Guy's got a family and also a pretty important football game against TCU to coach. But seriously, you wouldn't even want him at the table.

Coach Strong is a Thanksgiving lunatic. In his Monday morning press conference, the Texas boss was asked how he likes to celebrate Thanksgiving at his home. "You have to have your sweet potatoes and you also have to have a mixture," he said. "You know, your sweet potatoes and then your mashed potatoes and then you mix it up."

That answer is batshit crazy.

Break it down a second: Charlie Strong likes to get both regular mashed potatoes and sweet potatoes and mix them together into one big lump of beige confusion. For a coach who's said all the right things during his short tenure here in Austin, this might be the worst public opinion he's kept in his stack. You need to separate the two, Chuck. Combining both is like mixing sweet tea and coffee.

There's an easy parallel to be drawn from Strong's terrible food advice and his seasonlong coaching strategies. He's combining Mack Brown's old players with his own late commits and walk-ons to form a surprisingly interesting, unorthodox mixture. Given all the suspensions and injuries early on, it might even be apt to imply that Strong has done the best he can with a plate of Mack's old leftovers.

Coach Strong's questionable starch consumption notwithstanding, there's a lot to be thankful for with this modern-day football program. Texas is currently trending in the right direction, and has a chance to prove they belong in the conversation for next year's Big 12 Championship. The burnt orange will take the field on Thanksgiving evening against No. 5 Texas Christian in a game that truly has national championship implications. If TCU wins, they stand a good chance of qualifying for the inaugural college football playoff. Alabama, Florida State, and Mississippi State are all ranked ahead of the Horned Frogs; they each face tough opponents this week. A loss from any of those teams would likely allow TCU into the semifinals.

That's the story for Texas Christian. For the Longhorns, it's more long-range. Should they win, the college football world will get put on notice: The Longhorns are coming to the table hungry next year.