The Dallas Morning News’ Kevin Blackstone has a heck of a way of reciting the obvious; that Mack Brown’s hopes of ending a 5 game losing streak to Oklahoma rest squarely on the shoulders of Texas QB Vince Young.
Texas will win today’s 100th meeting of Longhorns and Sooners only if the latest in the line of offensive stars in burnt orange, Vince Young, has an outstanding day. And that’ll be a first for Young in this game, too.
Do you realize that Young (above), who has run over most every team he’s met in college football as if they were those orange traffic cones, has scored once against OU, and that was two Octobers ago?
This may seem too obvious an analysis, but the evidence is just undeniable. OU just has found a way to defuse the Texas offense.
“It made us frustrated,” Young said earlier this week of last year’s 12-zip setback. “For most of the guys … it was the first time to get shut out in our life, period.”
Young couldn’t pass. He could barely run. And the Sooners bottled up Benson.
Young no longer has a Benson. He has a fine-looking freshman running back, Jamaal Charles, but he is a freshman, nonetheless. And he doesn’t have a Roy Williams or B.J. Johnson to throw to, either. His best receiver is tight end David Thomas.
That would seem to make the Sooners’ job of stopping Texas’ offense a little easier. The Longhorns appear less dimensional on offense, more of a one-man attack. And they are.
But if there is one thing about this one man that should carry these Longhorns to victory this time, it is that he’s in total control and emboldened by it.
Though the late Pigskin Pete Franklin isn’t answering the phone today, CSTB’s Canine Council makes the following prediction: Texas 24, OU 13.