Welcome to Inside Texas Football Power by InsideTexas.com. You are watching the deep dive. That gentleman joining me is Ian Boyd, I'm Paul Wildlington. And we're gonna talk about something that is true off-season fodder, but I think interesting off-season fodder. And that is we're going to group the 2024 Longhorn schedule by order of difficulty. Ian, are you game to do it? - Oh man, I just read your article. Everybody else use promo code IT1 to get two months free? No, almost, almost free. For $1, which is virtually free. And then go read the article and then pause this, read the article and come back and listen to our discussion. - Listen to our discussion. Yeah, Ian, beautifully done. Thank you for the tag team on the promo there. All right, so my grand theory here, and I'm welcome to all of your inputs, Ian, is that there are four distinct tranches of Longhorn opponent difficulty. And if you kind of break down the schedule in that way, I think there's some clarity about what the floor of the Texas 2024 season can look like. And I think there is some clarity about what the ceiling can look like. So if you agree with the general premise, let's dive in and talk about it. And you can pick apart what my opinions are, and we can get some good contrarian input here to test my theory. So the first group, I call them the defeatables. This is not a buddy movie, action movie, where all the heroes lose immediately throughout the movie and the villain wins. No, this is actually the group of teams that I think that Texas should be able to handle. And it's pretty imperative that Texas is gonna reach their ambitions. They need to go five and O against this group. Four of those five games are at home, and they do feature a couple of SEC opponents, and then the majority of the non-con schedule, not including Michigan. So number 12, I have ULM, Louisiana Monroe. I've been doing some of my due diligence for my thinking Texas football preview, which will be coming out in early July. And Ian, ULM might be the only truly terrible football team that Texas will play in 2024. I have them at number 12. I think this would be a great opportunity to see lots of arch-manning and perhaps a bit of Trey Owens. Any thoughts on that? - I have not yet done my due diligence on ULM, but they were usually terrible and Texas has become pretty darn good the last couple of years. So I think we can move on. - Yep, take my word for it. And then I'll just read off the rest. Number 11, Colorado State. Of course, they do travel to Austin. That's the opener in week zero, August 31st. Out Vanderbilt, which will be a brutal road test for Texas. The brutality will be how many Texas fans can fit into Vanderbilt Stadium in Nashville. Number nine is UTSA, which projects, in my opinion, to be an eight or nine plus win team in the group of five. But as we've talked about, there's an increasing separation between the group of five and power five or power four. I need to get acclimated to the new universe. And then of course, finally, number eight, Mississippi State. So those are what I call the defeatables. I think if there is a team that could potentially be a little feisty for a while, I think maybe it's UTSA or Mississippi State. Frankly, Jeff Levy, Outcoached the Texas defensive staff when he was at OU last year. Not so much two years ago, but last year certainly. But I don't think they have the guys. I don't think they have the athletes player for player. If you look at Vegas as sort of an impartial arbiter of this, Ian, they have Mississippi State projected at a four and a half win total. So they're predicting a tough start in Starkville, even though I know both you and I like some of the things that did in the off season with the portal. - Yeah, that's kind of tough for me 'cause I feel like that offense that the Art Griles, Fear and Shoot style of offense, the Jeff Levy runs, I think it kind of gives teams a high floor. But I mean, I know they're in the SEC. I haven't looked at their schedule to know the specifics, but part of me thinks that that style will make it where they will hit that over. So long as they have enough, a couple of gameys and maybe some favorable home away splits on the breakdown of however their schedule worked out. And then also we both think that Blake Shaping is a pretty good quarterback. And they added a portal guy or two at receiver that are actually pretty good. Plus that school has been coached by Mike Leach for a few years prior. So it's not like they have to start over and be like, okay, Mississippi State roster, this is a wide receiver, you know? They're like, hey guys, this is a Jug's machine, you know? So I don't know, part of me thinks that Mississippi State could actually be sneaky good. - So the argument against them is this. We get them in Austin, which I think is useful. - Yep. - Also, their schedule is brutal. Right before they travel to Texas, they play Florida. The week after they play Texas, they play Georgia and then A&M. So, and they're also gonna play Tennessee. Of course they play Ole Miss in the Egg Bowl. It's set up rough for them. And even their non-con is a little sneakier than you might think. They play Eastern Kentucky. Yeah, you know, it's typical SEC scheduling. They play Arizona State who actually projects to be quite poor. And then they play Toledo, which if you know anything about the Mac, Toledo can play with lower to mid tier FBS teams on a neutral field, even their field. So in any event, we're not trying to project Mississippi State's season record. I just think that they probably represent the best of the defeatables. And if you're cool with that, we can move on to what we consider to be, or I consider to be the middle class. - One more note on Mississippi State is because they run Jeff Levy's offense, that's gonna be a preview for how Texas may be looking to defend it like a week or two later in the Red River shootout. Which is, for us, we'll either be, give us, you know, take some in essence, or maybe we'll feel confident. But for Texas, I think it's a major con. 'Cause if they have something new for that scheme, they have to show their hand a little bit before they play Oklahoma, which is not great. - Yeah, they may choose to hold it back. They may choose to run it and get some reps in it and challenge Oklahoma. - It doesn't matter. - Solve it. You know, I think actually it's good to see an offense of scaled down version before you face the real version. I don't think that ever hurts you. 'Cause you actually are the ultimate arbiter of the decision maker on what you wanna show or reveal against it. Do you wanna get reps running this new novel dime defense that we install? Or do you just wanna roll out basic and then try to hijack and surprise these guys down the road? Either way, let's talk about the middle class. It's three teams, in my opinion. One of them sneaks in partly because of the spot, partly 'cause it's a road game and a rival. But number seven, I have Arkansas. Number six, I have Florida. And number five, I have Kentucky. These represent three teams that I think have some floor available to them. And then situationally, because of the spot, meaning where Texas plays them in the schedule, they have an opportunity to be one of those uncomfortably close games against what should be across the board and infer your opponent. So you did an example of that. Think TCU in 2023. Gave us a little bit tougher game than probably anticipated. And I think that these three teams potentially project that way. Arkansas, it's at Arkansas. That's the primary factor. And I do think that they will have a dual threat quarterback in tail and green. And they're gonna have, frankly, a staff playing for their jobs or coaching for their jobs. If Sam Pittman doesn't get it done this year, he will be fired and Arkansas will be hiring a new coach. So that could cut two ways, but we'll find out. Florida, we talked about schedule and the spot. Florida is, Texas falls in the middle of a grouping where poor Florida plays Georgia, Texas, Ole Miss, and Tennessee. - It's like a playoff tournament. - Yeah, it's just Florida doesn't start the year five and one. They're going four and eight or five and seven. I mean, there's just no way around it. Now, they may have some talent. Of this group of three, they may have the highest upside, but they may also be a little bit beat up. And they're certainly not gonna be stealing extra prep for Texas. They've got other fish to fry. And that's kind of one of the refreshing things about the SEC. We're still gonna have a crew of these jihad games, but it's not gonna be every week and every opponent because frankly, they get bigger fish to fry or other traditional rivals to worry about. And then finally, Kentucky, this is a sneaky one. Part of this has to do with the fact of where it falls in the schedule. They are at Austin, which is very helpful. However, it's right after the Arkansas road trip and right before the road trip to A&M, where I think that that A&M game, Texas is gonna have some stuff on the wine and a lot of pressure. So Kentucky, I know people like to talk about trap games and I'm usually a little, I look a little as scants at that idea, but I think Kentucky could fit the role of a trap game. And they've got some individual players that are quite good. They've got a very good defensive tackle. They've got some interesting upside on their defense. Couple of players in their offense, particularly a wide receiver who can make plays. So if Brock Vandegriff comes through a quarterback, Kentucky could be a quiet, sneaky, good SEC team. Any thoughts on the middle class as I've characterized it? - Only that the gap in talent between Texas and Kentucky, like realized starter talent, is probably really a lot smaller than people realize because they have NFL defensive tackles, it looks like they have big offensive lineman, they use tight ends, they have big guys that can do lots of things there. They have a couple receivers that are like major burners, Barry and Brown, and I don't remember the other guy's name, but maybe an even better, faster guy. So they're like, it's like, I mean, it's really kind of like playing Oklahoma, only if Oklahoma, if Texas wasn't like the, you know, the Super Bowl for Oklahoma, what if you just played Oklahoma another week? I think Kentucky is actually a lot closer to that than people realize without watching as much as you see. And they're, Mark Stoops is more conservative than like Bob Stoops are typical Oklahoma coaches. They absolutely, like one of their faults is that they will like, he'll play to keep the score close. You know, he's almost treating it like an NFL job, which the SDC kind of is akin to that, where the gaps in talent aren't that big, but as long as you're within a certain point range, then it's like, well, you know. - I can affirm that. I have seen Mark Stoops, so he's been very successful at Kentucky from a macro perspective, but a lot of that success is built on beating the teams you should and keeping it respectable against the better teams. And he sort of coaches that way, whereas I think, you know, what makes a Brent Venables dangerous, and we're gonna talk about that a little foreshadowing, is that he'll endorse an asymmetrical strategy that might get him blown out, but he thinks that's the best way to possibly upset a superior team. Mark Stoops will never do that. Bob Stoops would do that. Mark Stoops won't. And so that can lead to some frustration, but the floor at Kentucky is pretty good, and it's set. And that's why Mark Stoops is, you know, one of the most successful coaches they've ever had. Of course, Paul Bear Bryant coached there back in the day, but also why he was almost tired to be the A&M coach. People have already forgotten that one, right? So that's the middle class. However, I wanna talk about the elite class of mortgage brokers. I wanna talk about a guy named Gabe Winslow. You can reach him at 832-557-1095. He's happy to help serve the middle class in their hope of the filming of the American Dream, and buying and purchasing a home. But you need the right guy in your corner, now more than ever, frankly, with interest rates a bit in flux. And frankly, the housing market has gotten a little less hot, but that does give you some interesting negotiating points. And you want a guy who's a mortgage broker who's got 70 different pathways to shop you your best rate, your best deal, rather than just go with the big bank guy who works banker's hours and has exactly one conduit for your loan. Paul Gabe Winslow, find out what he can do for you. Great guy, and he'll help you out, even if you're out of state. So don't be hesitant about giving him a call. Even if he won't make a single dollar, he'll look at your deal and bless it, or tell you what you should do to help negotiate. And he'll do it just 'cause he's a cool guy. Give him a call, 832-557-1095. The penultimate category we want to talk about is rivals with upside. And I think that there are two of them. And number four, I have the Oklahoma Sooners. Number three, I have the Texas A&M Aggies. OU is a true neutral site. And we think we know that the level of intensity and just sheer momentum swings that this game can bring. And then finally, traveling to A&M, I understand Texas fans wanna take jobs at Little Brother as they perceive it, that this won't be a big deal and the A&M's gonna get another Smackdown. But I think to suggest that this game will be circled on the A&M schedule is doesn't require a lot of knowledge of the Aggie mindset. Or frankly, it's important to them overall in recruiting Elco and all these other things that are going on. So I think both of these teams have upside. I'll give you the quick case for Oklahoma. I think what these two teams have in common is they will have at least good to potentially very good defenses. So put that aside, their upside now is on the offensive side. Oklahoma has that potentially with Jackson Arnold. They have to completely rebuild their offensive line. Ian, do they have a guy, a coach there, who has a pretty good track record of completely rebuilding the offensive line and build beaten ball? - They do. That's kind of their ace in the hole this offseason. Like whenever that's what Oklahoma fans will say to any major critique is, well, we have beaten, we have beaten Bo or however you say his name. So we'll probably be okay. And it's a little bit hard to argue. - Yeah, it's there. We have a whole response to, you know, to Loki outlying his great plan to take over the world. And you sort of shrug and say, we've got a Hulk. And then he comes out and pounds him. So that's kind of what OU fans are doing with Bill. But the truth is the guy is not such a miracle worker that he can make diamonds out of coal in one offseason. So I do think OU takes a step down there. The question is how much? They did have a change on offense. Do you think that their offensive coordinator changes a push? Or do you think they're gonna see a decline or possibly an improvement? - You could probably make a case for any of them. I don't really know the trails. History is an offensive coordinator. Well enough to, my guess is that they will get worse. 'Cause I do think that Levy was particularly creative. And I like to say he's the better heir of that system than the actual son, Kendall Bryles, who does not have a very good reputation and is not very creative. And I don't know, we could talk about some of his failings for a while if we wanted, but the Levy is definitely a really crafty offensive coordinator. They did have some sort of quality control issues on offense last year. I'm curious if that was a factor of like Brin Vinnables being a bad top-down organizer, or Vinnables being overly focused on boosting the defense, or if they were related to failings with Levy. Things like you could hear like their commentators and their fans had complained about false starts by wide receivers and critical moments, and just things like that, sloppy stuff. But they had some of that on special teams too, which makes me think maybe it was more of a Vinnables problem. Anyway, I'm gonna guess that they're worse. But I'm not sure, 'cause the trail may have more than I know. Do you have any opinion on it? I have a lot of respect for Jeff Levy as an offensive mind. I think he game plans really well. And then I think that that veer and shoot structure gives you sort of a reliable, duplicable series of plays that you can run over and over to give you some floor. And then I think he game plans for special opponents really well. The thing that I think will be interesting is how much they put on Jackson Arnold's plate, and then how much do they wanna run the ball to help compensate maybe for some past blocking deficiencies or Jackson Arnold's, you know, he's a young quarterback. He's gonna hold onto the ball a little bit. He's gonna try to make lemonade out of lemons all the time instead of just taking the sack. And so we saw a lot of that in the bowl gaming in Arizona. I think it would be foolish to think that that's the complete and finished Jackson Arnold product. And what we also saw, frankly, in that bowl game is Jackson Arnold made some awesome throws. So it's gonna be interesting. That's why I call them a rival with upside. And that's why I do think that they are distinct from the Arkansas, Florida, and Kentucky Tronch. Not the least of which I've watched enough Texas OU games that the inferior team beats the superior team more frequently than we like to imagine. I do think A&M is the better of these two teams though. And I think the gap may be larger than three, four would indicate. But only if they're offensive line comes together in a major way and they don't have beaten bow there. They have a guy who seems solid, but I don't know very well, so. - Yeah, I agree. I kind of like A&M in the sense that I think their defense will be good. I know what Elko's gonna provide there. And then offensively, I've read a lot on Kyle and Klein, like the opinions on that hire. And I've always held a pretty high regard for that guy. I think, and I think what did it for me was at first, I just thought he was sort of a blind, Snyder adherence of, hey, we're gonna run the quarterback. We're gonna have some run game stuff. We're gonna tinker with formations to get a potential deep shot. He proved to be a little bit more than that to me, given different types of quarterback. I think he's gonna do fine with Connor Wegman. We have talked about A&M and broke him down in the past. I don't think they have that elite wide receiver out there. I think they have a bunch of number twos, which an aggregate can be useful. But if you play a really good defense, so they're gonna be able to just shut down your passing game playing man, if you can't get separation. And then can you bring the rush and put Wegman under stress? - Good point. - Yeah, so let me ask you. Do you have any hard or strong feelings or inclinations about this list so far? We've gone through three major groupings. The defeatables, Texas needs to go five and oh. The middle class, Texas needs to go three and oh, if they wanna realize they're upside, there is some potential. Maybe if you're looking for that inferior team that upsets Texas, that is a potential in that middle class, right? And then I think the rivals with upside, I don't think it's crazy to think that Texas will go two and oh or split. - If they're gonna lose one of these games, it needs to be the last one. - I know a lot of people are gonna be, a lot of people are not gonna like that if you finally go back to A&M and they beat you. But they're gonna play him every year now. - You can't afford to lose no Oklahoma this year. You can probably afford to lose A&M, although either one might be pretty bad because these next two teams are on the schedule. - You know, it's funny, is OU may be same, same, but different. And what I mean by that is they're gonna have a different style of just replacing Dylan Gabriel, Jackson Arnold, changes some aspects of your offense. But in totality, this OU team may be just about as good as last year's OU team. The difference is just the schedule, meaning OU had an incredibly favorable schedule last year and went 10 and three, right? - Yeah. - They might be about the same team in a different way, but in aggregate, they're about the same quality of team, but they could legitimately go seven and five. - Yes. - And that OU fans don't wanna hear that, but you know, I could see the path to nine and three, absolutely, but I think it's interesting in that this could be exactly the same quality of team in aggregate and they're just gonna have an inferior record because of the schedule, not because anything fell off or, you know, the coaches didn't do a decent job. So I find that interesting. And then finally, let's talk about the champions division. There's an interesting symmetry here that's a little pleasing here. In Texas, opens effectively early in the season, not an opener, but in September, with on the road with the defending national champion. And then in October, they get to play the team that's unanimously or at least consensus projected to be the national champion in 2024. So if you wanna proving ground of quality for Texas, they're gonna find out in September and October where they sort of are in the college football hierarchy. Now, the story's not over there because of the new playoff system. We're gonna have to get used to the idea that a 10 and two Texas is gonna be a well-seeded playoff team, right? A nine and three Texas might make the playoff depending on the ACC, Big 12 and what Notre Dame does, right? But Michigan and Georgia are gonna be a proving ground. I think I have, well, I don't think I know. I have Michigan two and Georgia one. The big issue with Michigan is I know two things. I know they're gonna have to rebuild their offensive line, which I'm somewhat optimistic they'll put out a decent product. And then they gotta find a quarterback which I'm confident they were not gonna match JJ McCarthy in efficacy or third of eight bail us out with a good throw JJ, right? - That's the big one. - So, but here's the interesting part. They're gonna have an elite defense. Texas fans or anyone else watching this who's interested in college football, if you looked at the NFL draft and you saw all the guys drafted from Michigan defense and you think they're about to take a big step back, you're wrong. The guys replacing them are as good or better. And they have the best defensive tackle combo in college football. They have two elite guys in their secondary along with two or three other good guys or effective guys. And they've got pass-rusters galore. The only reason Junior Colson started is 'cause he was a year older than the guy behind him. And the guy behind him is just as good. So that's Michigan. And although the quarterback is a huge question mark and something Texas should be able to exploit, Michigan's potential strength, toughness in the interior running game and their ability to formation and do all sorts of crazy stuff in the running game, that could be our early season or even season long weakness, right Ian? Yep, I think they're gonna be good at that. Their quarterback can run from what I saw their spring game. I think they will be able to rebuild the power running game dimension of the offensive line. But they were already a little bit shaky and pass protection last year at tackle. And now they're kind of starting over. They have some huge Stanford transfer that's set last year for whatever reason or was benched last year. If he's like a guy this year, then maybe they're actually better. But odds are their pass game and their ability to get out of problems, like you said with McCarthy is gonna be gone. And with that, that's like, I mean, you could go from being a 12 and one to an eight and four team in a hurry without a dynamic like that. Yep. So yeah, it'll be really interesting. Obviously like we've talked about, that test is like whether Texas can stop the run without sweat, Murphy and Ford up the middle gets the ultimate initial test. 100%. Why do I have Georgia number one? 'Cause they're, does they have a lot of really good football players and they have a good football coach, Kirby Smart, and they're very good every single year? Yeah. I mean, and they've got a returning quarterback who proved to be good, essentially very good. And they're returning 15 starters. I don't think people realize that. And that's gonna be a big deal for them. They're just, and they, in aggregate, they have the most talented roster in college football. And they're not underachievers. They, they develop that talent. Kirby Smart has mastered that formula of recruiting his butt off, but then having development and also some tension in the program where if you're not getting it done, he's packing your bag for you and you're moving on, whether you want to or not. And whether you're a player or a coach. Whether you're a player or coach, that's also key. He's enforcing the vitality curve at every level. And that's not an easy thing to do, particularly when you've already won two national titles. It's very easy to get a little complacent. There's no complacency in Athens. This is gonna be a hell of a game. It's gonna be the game of the week, obviously in college football. Texas is gonna have several games of the week and which is gonna be awesome. And I think this is gonna be really exciting. This is the ultimate proving ground, this championship division of Michigan, Georgia, because of the different threats they represent and what they're gonna test in the Texas program. Looking at this, these four aggregations as a whole, Ian, what do you reckon? What's your takeaway on this? Is it a useful way to look at this of, hey, here's the teams we absolutely should be. Here's the middle tier. Here's a couple of wild cards in A&M and OU because of the rivalry, because of a neutral, because of a road and because both should be quality teams overall, and then finally two elite teams end of September and October. Is this a useful way to look at the schedule to get our minds around it? - Yeah, it tells you how many wins are likely where they need to come from. It also gives you a better idea of what Texas needs to get right this season, because it becomes plain which games are gonna matter in the win totals and what you're gonna need to win those games. So like making sure the run defense is short up. And then also if they have a great passing game and a great pass rush, then you can see that they have potential answers for all the trickiest games from those dimensions. - Yeah, 100%. There is going to be a real imperative on SARC to open up a lead as quickly as possible and get those pass rushes out on the field. Because if we consent to the other team's style, that's when we're gonna be, it's gonna be a slobber knocker and it's gonna be the last team with the ball probably is gonna get a chance at winning. So for Ian Boyd, I am Paul Waddlington. You can find us at Inside Texas. This has been the deep dive. Use promo code IT1 to get two months of Inside Texas for $1. And always we wanna thank our sponsor Gabe Winslow. You can reach him 832-557-1095. He's the guy you need to call. If you're gonna do a mortgage, if he's not your first call, make sure he's your last call. All right folks, this has been the deep dive.
Paul and Ian go through the Texas schedule and group teams by order of difficulty. Where does Texas need wins and who will test the Longhorns? Use Promo Code “IT1” To Get 2 Months of InsideTexas.com for Only $1: https://www.on3.com/teams/texas-longhorns/join/
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Chapters
00:00 The Defeatables
07:32 The Middle Class
14:20 Rivals With Upside
23:14 The Champions Division
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