The 411 on the third week of college football in Texas

[caption id="attachment_25544" align="alignright" width="350"]DSC05702 Photo by Jerome Hicks[/caption] Things went pear-shaped for Texas FBS teams this week, and there's a lot of rubble to sort through. Four ThoughtsWell, that escalated quickly The FBS schools from Texas started strong with a 10-2 record in Week 1. Since then, it’s been a nightmare. The state of Texas is 11-12 since that opening week. Most of it is due to the struggles of the smaller schools, specifically the Conference USA programs. The four CUSA teams – North Texas, Rice, UTEP and UTSA – are a combined 3-12 with only one of those wins coming over an FBS opponent. Rice is winless, while UTSA’s and North Texas’ wins didn’t come against FBS opponents. Only UTEP’s win over New Mexico State counts. Texas State is 1-1 with a win over Ohio. Houston and SMU are a combined 5-1, holding down the AAC for Texas. Signature wins lose their luster The P5 schools aren’t doing much better against fellow P5 competition. The P5 schools in Texas – Tech, A&M, Baylor, Texas and TCU – are a combined 12-3, but only 3-3 against P5 competition. The record becomes 4-3 if Notre Dame counts as a P5 school despite not actually playing in a conference. And two of those wins – A&M over Auburn and TCU over Iowa State – were conference wins. That leaves the state of Texas with out-of-conference wins against Notre Dame and UCLA. Houston’s victory over Oklahoma in Week 1 lost some luster after watching Ohio State toy with the Sooners. Aggies on the rise Texas A&M and Houston are clearly the best two teams in the state right now. We knew about Houston coming into the season, and a showdown late in the season with Louisville might determine a spot in the College Football Playoffs, but it is Texas A&M’s start that should be encouraging in College Station. The Aggies lost two five-star quarterbacks to transfer in the offseason and look better for it. Trevor Knight has been decent in the 3-0 start, but it isn’t the offense leading the Aggies to victory. Defensive coordinator John Chavis has the Aggies playing SEC football. Texas A&M went on the road and beat Auburn with defense and a kicking game, which is something it was incapable of doing when it joined the conference. Quietly, Texas A&M has the second-best resume in the hardest division in college football. 'Horns come crashing down That sound you hear is the Longhorn fan base crashing back to earth. A sobering loss in California shelved the talk about Texas being completely back under Charlie Strong. His specialty is defense and that’s the unit that let down the Longhorns after years of struggling on the offensive side of the ball. Texas’ offense put up 40+ points on the road, which should be good enough to win 98 percent of games when you’re chalked full of talent on the defensive side of the ball. Instead, Cal lit up Texas in the passing game and eventually escaped with a win. Texas had all the momentum in the world heading into a bye week before conference play began. Now, Strong must answer questions about his defensive coordinator for two weeks. One Question Is Baylor the favorite to win the Big 12 after three weeks of play? TCU lost to Arkansas. Oklahoma has two losses. Texas looked like its old self in the defeat to Cal and Texas Tech can’t play defense. Heck, even Oklahoma State lost an out-of-conference game, even if that one is a little tainted by poor officiating. The Bears never play anyone before conference begins so it is hard to gauge its 3-0 record against peers that actually played football teams in the first three weeks. One Prediction UTSA nearly pulled off its biggest win in program history before falling late by four points to an Arizona State team that put up 60+ points on Texas Tech the week before. Moral victories won’t help the Roadrunners reach a bowl game, but road wins against conference opponents will. My prediction is that UTSA goes on the road this week to beat Old Dominion, building momentum for a bowl berth thanks to a poor Conference USA West Division.

———