Congratulations OSU. You guys played a fantastic game and although I feel that we underestimated the impact of Terrell Brown’s loss, we were outplayed in virtually every aspect of the game. I guess that I am lucky that I do not work for ESPN, although it would make me far less likely to be writing this rebuttal. I have a couple of observations that I am going to make even though I will readily acknowledge that I should really not offer suggestions about a topic where I am grossly undereducated, especially in comparison to our coaching staff. But why should I be any different than any other passionate UT fan.

Defense:

• I hope that what I witnessed Saturday night was either a great OSU offense or an off night for the Longhorn defense and not a return to mediocrity.
• As I have already said, as a fan I grossly underestimated the impact of losing Terrell Brown. I feel that he could have better covered Ginn and that would have freed up Ross to cover Gonzalez. In this situaltion, Troy Smith would have had a much harder time completing passes which would have significantly slowed that offense.
• Also, although there were sparks of greatness from Muckelroy, our LB core is lacking some serious run stopping punch. Hopefully our run defense can be quickly bolstered by the return of Kelson and the addition of phenom Sergio Kindle.

Offense:

• I am a little weary of heaping criticism on such a new and green quarter back. There were times when Colt looked really good. I was particularly impressed with his composure when he was flushed out of the pocket and he continues to run the ball decent.
• I am concerned that he is always handing the ball off during the zone read. This will only work if he can be a threat to gain decent yardage. I also recognize that he is not VY. I don’t think anyone expects Colt to break games open with his legs.
• As for running though, Selvin and Jamal looked great. They repeatedly torched OSU’s defense with big gains. Unforutnately, almost every time that they got caught, it ended a drive.
• Finally, the play calling was pretty tight. I am not sure if this is Greg Davis showing us that he has little confidence in Colt to not throw the game away or if he is returning to the days of Chris Simms. Either way, this needs to change in the next couple of weeks or it could be alot closer in Dallas than it should be.

Again, my opinions really mean nothing. I will forever remain a faithful Longhorn fan, and the loss was incredibly hard to take. But, every team in the nation has felt this more recently than us (not sure if that should make this easier, maybe I will ask a Sooner or Aggie fan). There were many of us looking for someone to serve up on a plate Sunday morning, but almost every recognizes that we just lost the greatest player in NCAA history two games ago and that will inevitably cause some growing pains.

Hook ‘Em