We’re halfway through the Texas Longhorns season, and the team now stands at 2-4. You could make the argument that a .333 winning percentage is pretty bad for one of the biggest college football programs in the country, but you could also argue a 33% success rate is pretty good for NASCAR drivers or people who play the lottery. Sometimes success goes deeper than wins and losses. Allow this midseason report card to break it down.
Quarterback: C
As I mentioned online this week, stand-in QB Tyrone Swoopes isn’t particularly talented at either running or throwing the football, two key skills if you want to play QB. His accuracy has improved a bit, but it’s painful to watch him run, and even worse to hear analysts refer to him as a “dual-threat quarterback.”
Defense: B-
When I was in high school I did very poorly in classes where homework would count as a large part of my grade. Texas’ defense has the same type of mentality: They’ll show up big during the midterms – the games against the Baylors and Oklahomas – but they’ll stumble out of bed late and do their BYU assignment in the cafeteria.
Coaching: a “great job” apple sticker
Charlie Strong doesn’t get letter grades until next season.
Special Teams: See me after class
Last week was a disaster for the Longhorns on kick and punt coverage. They allowed a 91-yard kickoff return early and later forgot what a fair catch means when sprinters plowed into Oklahoma’s punt returner about two seconds too early. Strong gave a baffling explanation for his kickoff coverage, saying that he and two other coaches divide responsibility for coaching the players on the kickoff team. The best way to make sure that a job doesn’t get done is to assign three people to lead it.
Fans: D
Learn to cook something besides a sausage and tortilla at tailgates, people. Excellent fundamentals of cheap beer and plentiful Tito’s, but step your food game up.
Snarky alt-weekly columnists: D-
C’mon dude, take it easy on the fans. A sausage wrap is easy to eat on the go. Sure, it’s not fancy but you can cook about a hundred of them at a time. You should just be thankful that you’re not in Lubbock eating whatever they cleaned off the threading of a drill bit.
People who criticize grades: F
The greatest trick a sausage wrap ever played was convincing the world it wasn’t a hot dog. It is the only food that is commonly prepared using the combination of mustard and a flour tortilla. They’re awful. Stop serving them.
This article appears in October 17 • 2014.