A pattern of blowout losses to the Oklahoma Sooners has developed for Mack Brown and the Texas Longhorns, says Peter Bean of Burnt Orange Nation. The Longhorns' 63-21 humiliation on Saturday was the fourth time that Texas has lost to Oklahoma by at least 38 points in Brown's tenure.
Four. That's the number of times during the Mack Brown era that Texas fans have slunk out of the Cotton Bowl embarrassed by the Sooners under Bob Stoops, who today ran his record against UT to 9-5. So in other words, across the 13 games between the two coaches, Stoops has almost the same number of blowout ass whippings of Texas as Brown has total wins over OU. Take out the win over Stoops when the Sooners were still recovering from the John Blake era, and it's even.
The Longhorns have now dropped three straight games to the Sooners for the second time under Brown. The first stretch came from 2000 to 2004, when the Sooners won five straight meetings in the Red River Rivalry. Prior to that, Oklahoma hadn't even reeled off two straight wins since the late-80s.
Though the rivalry game rarely comes down to a defensive battle, the Longhorns usually show better on that side of the ball than they did on Saturday. The performance seems indicative of a larger problem, writes Bean:
Texas' last four opponents have run 298 plays for an astounding 2,112 yards, or an average of 7.1 yards per play, the worst mark in the country over that span.
In a separate piece on Burnt Orange Nation, TXStampede notes that the Longhorns are lacking their famous Texas Fight:
Whether it's the coaches developing the right system for success or establishing the right rehearsal tone or properly approaching the games or an inherent, dare I say, sense of entitlement, the team just does not appear to have any bounce off the mat ability.
The Longhorns return home on Oct. 20 to face another high-powered offense as the Baylor Bears come to town.