I stayed away this weekend, assuming the board would be loaded with doom and gloom and then a bunch of rationalization. After clicking around, it looks like things held together here somewhat nicely.
That considered, now I'm worried about things here in the opposite direction. The general optimism towards the rest of the season across numerous threads creates the impression that a whole herd of you guys aren't prepared for what's actually going to unfold. That could lead to utter catastrophe when the inevitable happens, leading to numerous psychotic breaks for stunned denizens of this board and I'd hate to see it/hear about it.
The reality is, Steve Sarklostagain still hasn't done a fucking thing in his career to merit receiving the benefit of the doubt from the fanbase and posters on this board. He's never won more than 9 games, he's been outcoached on numerous occasions, and he's a born loser at heart, reflected repeatedly in a career of inexplicable losses.
Seven Loss Steve's entire head coaching history reflects a penchant for winning games that surprise people and then following that soon enough with an inexplicable loss or seven.
2009 - UW plays LSU close to open the season, then pulls a wild upset of USC in week 3 before going 5-7 with headscratching losses to a failing Weis-led ND program that went 6-6 and ended up firing their fat idiot head coach to end the year and then a loss to an eventual 4-8 ASU team that lost all 5 games they played after beating UW.
"but closetojumping, UW was 0-11 in 2008! he can't be dinged for the turnaround in that season!" - wait, there's more.
2010 - After upsetting 18th ranked USC on the road in the Colesseum, Seven Win turns around the next week at home and shits the bed against an ASU that had lost 3 straight and went 6-6.
2011 - No real surprising wins this season, but ol'Seven Loss did find a way to climb into the dumpster and light his team on fire by losing to an Oregon State that was 2-8 at the time and finished 3-9.
2012 - a 3rd straight 7 win season. Steve Sarkloseian took some early losses against good teams and brought his team roaring back to a 7-4 record and 4 game winning streak before bending his Washington team over and letting a 3-9 Washington State team just buttfuck it into oblivion in the annual rivalry game. He had some big time "we're back!" wins this season, beating #7 Stanford and #Oregon State.
2013 - Finally, a retooled roster with all of Seven Loss' own players! UW marches out to a 4-0 record before getting buzzsawed by the #5 and then #2 teams in the country, the latter in blowout fashion. Not the end of the world. Then, they headed to Tempe, still ranked, and were beaten by 4 touchdowns via a Todd Graham-led ASU team on no one's radar. At 8-4, and showing an obvious trajectory towards titles, USC calls Seven Win Steve home!
2014 - Seven Win's best year to date, he takes a USC team, ranked 15th to open the year, and they finish ranked #20 with underdog wins against two ranked opponents while also inexplicably losing a slap fight to a Boston College team that would finish 7-6.
2015 - Uneven Steven had USC open at #8 and then plummet out of the top 25 at 3-2 when he was seen visibly drunk on the sidelines during a loss to an unranked UW team and eventually fired for repeating the behavior the following week at practices.
2021 - No valued win in this 5-7 season of rebuilding! a 7-3 roster, but Texas did have standout losses to eventual 7-6 Iowa State, 2-10 Kansas, and 6-7 West Virginia.
2022 - We can argue about Texas Tech but Texas should have won that fucking game. Seven Win Steve freezing up with his playcalling against Tech, TCU, and Okie State played critical roles in the eventual 8-5 season.
2023 - If you can't find the next headscratching loss, you're not alone. No one else seems to be able to on this board either. I'll help you out though.
It is likely going to be among one of these opponents, and will likely be at least two of them, given history:
@UH
BYU
KSU
@TCU
@ISU
Tech
I've bolded my best bets, but it could happen with any of them.
Stop talking about the playoffs or rematching against OU. Texas doesn't have the coach for that. We're staring down the barrel of a 9-3 regular season. Sarkisian has said privately that he views bowl games as prep for the next season and the outcome doesn't concern him one way or the other. I'm assuming a banner year is in order here, and we see another career high 9 win season at 9-4.
You can keep all of the receipts on this that you'd like, but you're not going to need them.