2013 Pre-season Rankings: #5 Texas Longhorns

SportsRatings 2013 College Football Pre-season Top 125

Texas Longhorns  (Big Twelve #1)

#5	2012 Results	AP #19 USA #18	Strength:#19  Success:#22  Overall:#18
		Record: 9-4	Bowl: Beat Oregon State 31-27 (Alamo)
	2013 Outlook	Picks: AP #15 | USA #15 | Lindy's #18 | Athlon #18 | Steele #5
		Record: 10-2	Bowl: Fiesta (Eligibility odds: 99.9%)

Gun-shy? After two years of touting Texas as a turnaround team, the national media has been bitten twice and is backing off, generally predicting a small amount of improvement from the Longhorns. But Phil Steele isn't afraid to make a bold prediction and apparently neither are we.

Offense 10 ret. starters	2012 Scoring Offense: #21 (raw) #14 (adjusted for opposition)
	2013 Projected Scoring Offense: #3 (adjusted)

Scads of returning starters plus co-o.c. Major Applewhite shifting the tempo into overdrive should equal the Texas offense becoming one of the nation's very best.

Passing Game	2012 Passing Rank: #43 (raw) #47 (adjusted)	2012 Sacks Allowed (adj.): #25
	2013 Projected Passing Rank: #9 (adjusted)	2103 Sacks Allowed (proj.): #16

Texas' problems over the last three years can largely be traced to quarterback play. Following the Vince Young and Colt McCoy eras came the disastrous Garrett Gilbert year and a year of David Ash/Case McCoy battles where both were ineffective. Last season David Ash (2,699 yards, 19 TDs, 8 int) firmly entrenched himself as the starter for the team and with Case McCoy (722 yards, 6 TDs, 3 int) as backup the QB position is pretty sound. Six of last year's top eight receivers are back including #1 Mike Davis (939 yards, 7 TDs) and #2 Jaxon Shipley (737 yards, 6 TDs). QB protection was very good last year (16 sacks) and could be even better this year. All of that wouldn't cause a jump from #47 into the top ten, but all of that plus a) an offensive shift from run-heavy to a more balanced spread and b) a move to a super up-tempo offense, could do it.

Rushing

2012 Rushing Rank: #50 (raw) #37 (adjusted)

2013 Projected Rushing Rank: #15 (adj.)

Texas used a running-back-by-committee approach last year and it was a big committee, with 7 players topping 100 yards. Five of them are back—the top four plus QB Ash—with #1 Johnathan Gray (701 yards) and Joe Bergeron (567 yards, 16 TDs) leading the way. #3 Malcolm Brown had 324 yards last year and 742 the previous year when he was uninjured. The offensive line returns five starters: seniors Mason Walters, Trey Hopkins, and Donald Hawkins join juniors Dominic Espinosa and Josh Cochran. That adds up to a big jump in ground production, well into the top 25. Some reps will be diverted to the passing game in the new offense but the faster tempo should more than make up for that.

2012 Adjusted Stats:	Rush Defense: #72    Pass Defense  per-game: #9   Per-attempt: #63
Defense 9 ret. starters	'12 Scoring Defense: #76 (raw) #36 (adjusted)	'12 sacks: #12	'12 picks: #26
	'13 Projected Scoring Defense: #46 (adjusted)	'13 sacks: #9	'13 picks: #25

Last year's scoring defense ranked #76 in raw numbers but Texas played some of the highest-scoring teams in the country (5 of the top 11); when adjusted it was a mediocre but not-horrible #36. The per-game pass defense similarly jumps from #36 to #9 when corrected for the pass-happy teams the Longhorns faced. The rushing defense still looked bad even after correction (#72).

This year it's easier to start with who is not back on the Texas defense, as they lose only 2 of their top 20 tacklers. They are two very important losses, however: #1 tackler Kenny Vacarro (96 tackles) from the secondary, and Alex Okafor (12.5 sacks) from the defensive line. The D-line also loses part-time starter Brandon Moore (8 tackles for loss) and Ashton Dorsey (10 tackles for loss) who recently transferred, but Jackson Jeffcoat comes back from injury. They also thought they were getting Zeke Riser from Houston but he ended up at Maryland. At linebacker all three starters return and Jordan Hicks is back, too; like Jeffcoat he played only a handful of games before being lost for the year. The secondary has three starters back including Quandre Diggs (4 int). This defense will be a lot better, and normally they would jump in rank well into the top 25, but with the added tempo on offense opponents will have more drives and plays and inevitably, scoring. So in this case the scoring defense may lose ground despite the D being much better. By playing against the fast-paced offense in practice the defense should get used to the pace pushed by many of its opponents.

Special Teams/Situations

• Kicking Game:  Kicker Nick Jordan (9 of 15 field goals) is back but has to fight off Nick Rose to keep his job. Punter Alex King (45.3 yard average) is gone and Penn State transfer Anthony Fera (42.0 average at Penn State in 2011) should get the job.
• Return Game:  Quandre Diggs averaged 8.2 yards per punt return and he's back. D.J. Monroe (24.5 average on kickoffs, 1 TD return) is gone. Diggs took kickoffs in 2011 but Duke Thomas may get the call there.
• Turnovers projection:  We don't see a big change in turnovers for the Longhorns.

Coaching/Recruiting      2013 Recruiting Rank: #32          2012 Recruiting Rank: #1
Being #1 is a tough act to follow—just ask Mack Brown. No, I'm not talking about the 2005 national championship that somehow has started to haunt him in comparison to recent years. But last year's #1 recruiting class, which he follows with one that doesn't make the top 25. The secret is size—the 2012 class had 28 recruits and this one has just 15, so it's not fair to call it a decline; they just can't use that many players this year. In terms of quality, it's good—having a 15-player class rank near the top 25 is pretty rare. About 2/3 of the players are considered blue chips. Juco offensive lineman Desmond Harrison just got cleared to play, and he's expected to jump in right away.

2012 Recap
Texas started off a bit shaky against Wyoming (37-17), improved with a 45-0 shutout of New Mexico, and bombarded Mississippi for 66 points. They also gave up 31, and they gave up 36 to high-scoring Oklahoma State in that win. The next three games were defensive nightmares; the Longhorns yielded 48 at home to West Virginia in a 45-35 loss, 63 to Oklahoma (63-21), and 50 to Baylor (a 56-50 win). The D recovered quite a bit after that but the offense slipped against Kansas (a 21-17 point win) and TCU (a 20-13 loss). They played well in beating Texas Tech 31-22 and Iowa State 33-7, and in the 42-24 loss to Kansas State at the end. The bowl game showed both the offense and defense is good form in a 31-27 win over tough Oregon State.

Last year's prediction: We had Texas #6 last year, we admit it. But that was the first year we were calling for a big rebound season for the Longhorns; we didn't buy it in 2010. Last year we projected a 9-3 season in cumulative terms. The defense was supposed to get worse but not as bad as it got, and we did correctly project the scoring offense rising into the top 25.

2013 Outlook

Texas 2013 schedule & forecast
8/31	Sat	vs.	New Mexico State	99%	W
9/7	Sat	@	BYU	78%	W
9/14	Sat	vs.	Mississippi	74%	W
9/21	Sat	vs.	*Kansas State	87%	W
10/5	Sat	@	*Iowa State	88%	W
10/12	Sat	vs.	*Oklahoma	75%	W
10/26	Sat	@	*TCU	69%	W
11/2	Sat	vs.	*Kansas	99%	W
11/9	Sat	@	*West Virginia	95%	W
11/16	Sat	vs.	*Oklahoma State	64%	W
11/28	Thu	vs.	*Texas Tech	95%	W
12/7	Sat	@	*Baylor	75%	W
Straight up: 12-0  Cume: 10-2  Odds of 12-0: 10%

A team ranked #4 probably should be favored in all of its games, and Texas is because they are top in the Big Twelve in our book, they face the next-toughest conference teams at home, and their pre-season schedule contains no powerhouses.

New Mexico State is a gimme, but BYU is a strong opponent on the road. Mississippi is a borderline top ten team in our rankings but it's in Austin. The latter two games should help establish whether the Longhorns are back for real or just pretending early on. The toughest gaems in the Big Twelve should be TCU on the road and Oklahoma State at home. And of course Oklahoma in Dallas is huge, and Baylor on the road is a final test. Amongst all of these the Longhorns should lose a couple of games, with their odds of actually winning all of them being just 10%.

My question is, does Texas have quarterback play solid enough to make a national championship run? That and the defense, mainly the rushing defense, have to be proven sound enough to take on the very best teams. Winning the Big Twelve is one thing, but this year the conference might not be as good as it has been recently.

We do rank Texas #1 in the Big Twelve so they ought to go to the Fiesta Bowl, and they might end up playing Louisville there.

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