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Notre Dame 2016 vs. USC 2018

Mitch Cumsteen

By Mitch Cumsteen
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Mitch Cumsteen

Mitch Cumsteen 18550

Posted
Posted

I feel like I've been down this road before.

  • Big home win with record setting crowd against a storied program that is better in name than actually on the football field.
  • ND turned out to be complete shit that year (4-8). They lost to the likes of Duke and Navy. USC doesn't appear to be much better.
  • Coach in desperate need of a win to appease an anxious fan base.
  • "Signature" win supposed to get the program back on track.
  • Team battled through adversity - down 14-3 against USC and blew a 31-17 lead vs ND but still competed and won in OT.

 

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TornACL

TornACL 7722

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I don't know why people keep saying this.

Quote

"Signature" win supposed to get the program back on track.

I've seen tweets from sportswriters laughing about how Texas fans are crowing and strutting over this win. I haven't seen any of that. After the game at our tailgate, pretty much everyone said it was a nice win, but show it to us again vs TCU.

 

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satyanash

satyanash 14599

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I guess we'll find out come TCU.

We made two big mistakes against USC - the Daniel Young fumble and Sam's safety - that we were very lucky to not suffer any ill effects from (Young's fumble led to the kick-six, officials botched the call on the safety). TCU will take full advantage if we repeat those type of gaffes. At the same time, our players' improvement since 2016 is pretty undeniable. 

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DefinitelyNotHollywoodColt

DefinitelyNotHollywoodColt 12301

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1 minute ago, Foosters said:

No. It doesn't make any sense at all. 

yeah i assumed that syndrome was characterized by ignoring a mountain of evidence based on past experiences and assuming that things would be different this time. seems like that's exactly what you're doing if you've decided that win was the turning point in this program.

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Droopy

Droopy 2626

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Just winning is nice, and we will know more about the team after this weekend. Clearly though, Texas finally had the ball bounce their way. Special teams need to be tweaked on blocking but we broke through and scored non offensive points. The O played well, not perfect but well. The D is going to struggle at times,  it still killed it in the run game defense and the secondary will keep improving. Honestly, my goal was to not be embarrassed and appear to look like we gave a damn. That happened and I for one was pleased by the effort regardless of opponent. Do that against TCU and I’ll be just as positive about the direction we are going. Get blown out and look lost and that will change. 

Edited by Droopy
Phone in the crapper
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WhatTheBuck

WhatTheBuck 28795

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This game showed some development of a QB early in his second year in the system. The other game was the first game for a new QB who just threw quick outs to the sidelines and deep balls. Nothing in the middle of the field. 

I had the USC-UT game on a second screen while I was watching the OSU-TCU game so I could keep an eye on it. I couldn't give it my complete attention but from what I saw it looked like Ehlinger was showing real progress running the Tom Herman offense. I would find that encouraging. 

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Droopy

Droopy 2626

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1 minute ago, WhatTheBuck said:

This game showed some development of a QB early in his second year in the system. The other game was the first game for a new QB who just threw quick outs to the sidelines and deep balls. Nothing in the middle of the field. 

I had the USC-UT game on a second screen while I was watching the OSU-TCU game so I could keep an eye on it. I couldn't give it my complete attention but from what I saw it looked like Ehlinger was showing real progress running the Tom Herman offense. I would find that encouraging. 

This, from a casual observer. I saw improvement and that is what I wanted to see. The team needs to grow and it appears that it will. Not perfect but it’s a sign of life. Baby steps.  Hook ‘ em!

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taybo20

taybo20 2878

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We will need to be grown up this weekend if we hope to win. DL will need to play very disciplined and not let the TCU QB run wild. USC has now lost 2 games in a row and looked like shit. We were favored. Yes I’m happy we won, but still more upset we aren’t 3-0 right now about to start conference play

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Bevo14

Bevo14 8358

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40 minutes ago, TornACL said:

I don't know why people keep saying this.

I've seen tweets from sportswriters laughing about how Texas fans are crowing and strutting over this win. I haven't seen any of that. After the game at our tailgate, pretty much everyone said it was a nice win, but show it to us again vs TCU.

 

People like to say what we're thinking with no supporting evidence all the time.

giphy.gif

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ATXHorn94

ATXHorn94 71

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47 minutes ago, Mitch Cumsteen said:

I feel like I've been down this road before.

  • Big home win with record setting crowd against a storied program that is better in name than actually on the football field.
  • ND turned out to be complete shit that year (4-8). They lost to the likes of Duke and Navy. USC doesn't appear to be much better.
  • Coach in desperate need of a win to appease an anxious fan base.
  • "Signature" win supposed to get the program back on track.
  • Team battled through adversity - down 14-3 against USC and blew a 31-17 lead vs ND but still competed and won in OT.

 

Definitely not getting my hopes up for the season unless we can steal one from TCU this weekend.

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Hagbard Celine

Hagbard Celine 10907

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2 minutes ago, ATXHorn94 said:

Definitely not getting my hopes up for the season unless we can steal one from TCU this weekend.

Definitely not getting my hopes up that we've turned the corner and the program is headed in the right direction unless we can steal one beat everyone in the league comfortably like we used to before The Hit on Colt.

Wins over everyone in this league except Oklahoma is not and never should be thought of as stealing.  The use of that word indicates significant historical dysfunction in this program.

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ATXHorn94

ATXHorn94 71

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Posted
Just now, Hagbard Celine said:

Definitely not getting my hopes up that we've turned the corner and the program is headed in the right direction unless we can steal one beat everyone in the league comfortably like we used to before The Hit on Colt.

Wins over everyone in this league except Oklahoma is not and never should be thought of as stealing.  The use of that word indicates significant historical dysfunction in this program.

I used the word "steal" because they have owned us 4 years in a row and still look like the better team this year.  If we were beating everyone on the schedule, there wouldn't be a need to get my hopes up for the season.

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Coelenterate Fuccboi

Coelenterate Fuccboi 13119

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18 minutes ago, DefinitelyNotHollywoodColt said:

yeah i assumed that syndrome was characterized by ignoring a mountain of evidence based on past experiences and assuming that things would be different this time. seems like that's exactly what you're doing if you've decided that win was the turning point in this program.

Long-term effects can include:

PTSD-like symptoms, including flashbacks.

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Mojo Hand

Mojo Hand 4580

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It's definitely a signature win.  It's just that our signature right now is beating overrated bad teams like 2016 ND and 2018 USC while losing to good teams and some headscratchers like MD.   Fuck it, though, it was still damn fun to watch.   Hell, so was 2016 ND.  At least I got some small joy out of a recent football season. 

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MAGS®

MAGS® 400

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Posted

It was a signature win in only the fact that the general topic of conversation went from "Fire Tom Herman"  to "jesus, they are playing journey at the game, and godzillatron is too loud."  For which as a fan base, if you are bitching about the little things, its a good sign.   

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HOOK'EMHOOAH

HOOK'EMHOOAH 1610

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Realtalk: this was a great win. However, that's all it was. There is just not enough data yet to be able to determine what this win means for the future of the program. I would love to be able to look back at this one and say that without a doubt it was the reawakening of a program that fell dormant. I'm not comfortable getting that far out on the ledge at this time though. For now, all I'm going forward with is enjoying the wins when they come and not gonna get to far ahead of the game at hand.

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GoldAppleCorps

GoldAppleCorps 622

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The cure for this is to watch the football games.

Against ND, we used an insane amount of offensive gimmicks to paper over the fact we couldn't do anything as a team. We just tried to find that one magic individual who could score high school style TDs by himself. The defense tried to find individual efforts. It all added up to a dice roll at the end that went in our favor.

USC helped us by not having a run game. Texas' D got some key pieces back that led to them playing with cohesion, and the end result was the Trojans hoping to cash in on deep balls. Offensively, Texas showed it could run when it wanted to, and find open receivers afterwards. No particular phase was dominant, but each complemented the other and melded into an actual game plan. Of course, actually getting FGs sort of helped the score too.

There are teams on Texas' schedule that perform better than the Horns showed on Saturday night. They're not world-beaters yet, but this was real, workman like win by a team that combined the physical preparedness with the mental discipline to execute. They need to keep getting better, but this was in no way the "Hey, look what we found!" Notre Dame style win.

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closetojumping

closetojumping 62779

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It's a bizarre psychological phenomenon, watching good things happen to people and seeing them find reasons as to either why they don't deserve it, or why you need to understand that they deserve it. It always makes me a little sad when I see it happen to my tribe. 

Texas took a punch on Saturday, picked itself up off the ground, grabbed a rock, and then beat the other guy into a coma. Texas could have put up 14 more points if it wanted. USC was shellshocked from the 2nd quarter forward. People can shit talk USC, and that's fine. Maybe they're a bad team this year. USC hasn't had a losing season since 2000 and they've got one of the most talented teams in the country, on paper. Could they be a bad team? Yep. Are they probably an 8-5-ish team, more likely? Yes. And Texas just did to them what Texas did to Missouri, who looked like a similar type of team when we played them. I don't see value in poo-pooing this. 

We can enjoy the win without placing a value judgment on the season with it, or dimming down the fun in the win by lamenting the difficulties of a TCU game. 

I don't expect a win vs TCU, but I'm not as despondent as I was after the first two weeks. I'm allowed to feel better as a fan. Beating the shit out of another blue blood on prime time television is a form of catharsis for me as a fan, even if I don't feel the need (or belief) to examine the premise of "Texas is back!". It's deservedly become something of a running joke. Now, if Texas beats TCU, we can at least think about the future more in that frame of mind, and we shouldn't feel sheepish doing so. 

All of this considered, look, TCU has plenty of warts this year. They're also not some legendary juggernaut of a program. If Texas does ever want to return to the upper echelon, beating good TCU teams after getting up for a blue blood is the kind of thing we should expect to see from the program. 

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Tex Pete

Tex Pete 20429

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8 minutes ago, closetojumping said:

It's a bizarre psychological phenomenon, watching good things happen to people and seeing them find reasons as to either why they don't deserve it, or why you need to understand that they deserve it. It always makes me a little sad when I see it happen to my tribe. 

Texas took a punch on Saturday, picked itself up off the ground, grabbed a rock, and then beat the other guy into a coma. Texas could have put up 14 more points if it wanted. USC was shellshocked from the 2nd quarter forward. People can shit talk USC, and that's fine. Maybe they're a bad team this year. USC hasn't had a losing season since 2000 and they've got one of the most talented teams in the country, on paper. Could they be a bad team? Yep. Are they probably an 8-5-ish team, more likely? Yes. And Texas just did to them what Texas did to Missouri, who looked like a similar type of team when we played them. I don't see value in poo-pooing this. 

Too many of our "fans" are only happy when they're unhappy. They shit on the team every chance they get.

We have improved from game 1 to game to game 3. 2/3 of our fans said we'd lose to USC. We didn't, but they still have to shit on the team. We all know we lost a game we shouldn't have. We all know we didn't look good the second half of the Tulsa game. We all hope the team will keep getting better. We all want to be a dominant team. We're all tired of losing. Shut the fuck up and watch the games.

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Stunns38

Stunns38 3538

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TCU, OU, WVU, and OSU are all better than USC.  Our record will sort itself out with how good we are.


Yep.

And Tech found their QB, ISU isn’t a give me, KU looks better than Tulsa, and BU is the only team that’s a slam dunk win.

Roach is out probably for the rest of the season as well though it may be addition by subtraction since he was playing out of position.

Plus Maryland and Tulsa got beat by inferior teams this past weekend. I just don’t trust Ehlinger and our offensive coaching staff yet.
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closetojumping

closetojumping 62779

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3 minutes ago, Tex Pete said:

Too many of our "fans" are only happy when they're unhappy. They shit on the team every chance they get.

We have improved from game 1 to game to game 3. 2/3 of our fans said we'd lose to USC. We didn't, but they still have to shit on the team. We all know we lost a game we shouldn't have. We all know we didn't look good the second half of the Tulsa game. We all hope the team will keep getting better. We all want to be a dominant team. We're all tired of losing. Shut the fuck up and watch the games.

I always feel like I'm a realistic optimist. On all things in life. I'm an entrepreneur and it takes a combination of arrogance and optimism every time one takes that plunge. Doesn't always mean you're justified in doing it, but you never get off the button without that combo. In fandom, it means that I tend to overpredict our upside when we're mediocre and downplay our upside when we're legitimately ready to take on the world.

I said 9+ wins before the year, and then Maryland. I predicted a USC win in a close one, low-scoring, on this board, but offline I was telling the folks at the tailgate and within my group of friends that I expected Texas to win a low-scoring close one and we'd all make a bigger deal out of it than it was.

In truth, none of that happened. Texas beat the shit out of those guys for 3 quarters. Once they got their bearings, they took the life out of USC's sidelines. I haven't seen Texas do that another blue blood in what feels like a decade. I wasn't expecting that, and I don't know anyone that was. I don't know what that means for the rest of the year, but I do know it means there's more upside to this season than I'd thought as recently as Saturday afternoon.

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NBMisha

NBMisha 224

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It was gratifying to see the overall effort, and level of play.  No poo pooing that at all.  I, for one, don't think USC sucks.  We'll see against Wazzu this weekend.  I think they get their crap together and win out except UW.  Whatever.

 

But, no one else will be giving and giving and giving like USC did for us with the penalties and stupidity, short kicks, etc.  A clean game, and its closer.  More close games against mediocre teams are likely in our future.  But I'm giving the cynical hate a rest this week, and hope for a similar effort against TCU.

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Tex Pete

Tex Pete 20429

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12 minutes ago, closetojumping said:

In truth, none of that happened. Texas beat the shit out of those guys for 3 quarters. Once they got their bearings, they took the life out of USC's sidelines. I haven't seen Texas do that another blue blood in what feels like a decade. I wasn't expecting that, and I don't know anyone that was. I don't know what that means for the rest of the year, but I do know it means there's more upside to this season than I'd thought as recently as Saturday afternoon.

I am also cautiously optimistic. I do know that we have recruited players who are mostly winners from HS. At Texas, none of them have experienced winning big on a regular basis, so they have to learn how to put it all together. The USC game CAN BE the impetus for that. This is certainly a stretch of games that can solidify that mindset in a bunch of guys who have been trying figure it all out. It's a great opportunity. Will it? Nobody knows.

I'm just happy the season isn't already over like it felt like after the Maryland game.  

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South Austin

South Austin 52552

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I had a blast at the Notre Dame game in 2016.  I had a blast at the USC game on Saturday night. 

Looking back on how the 2016 season fell apart after the Notre Dame game, most reasonable Longhorn fans like myself are far from proclaiming that Texas is back.  But comparing what we've seen from the Tom Herman regime to date with the three-year ineptitude of the Charlie Strong era, there's grounds for optimism that our season won't take a dive after the USC game like it did after the Notre Dame game. 

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