Texas football: What's does Texas have to do to become 'elite'?
Texas has come a long way since Herman first took over the Longhorn program. From a team with a losing record to a bowl winner and all the way to the cusp of being an elite program as evidenced by a spirited performance against LSU.
Now, though, comes the hardest part.
Texas has to take the last step of that lengthy journey and kick the door down to join the elite football programs in America.
Our goal is not to just belong," Texas head coach Tom Herman said. "Our goal is to win those things, and I get there is a bit of PTSD around here for the prior decade or so, but I told our team, in three years we have come this far, and we've got this far to go to be elite, and that last bit is the hardest part, right?"
The already look the part. Athlete for athlete and talent for talent, Texas stacks up against just about any team in the country that lines up in front of them.
Where all are the Longhorns lacking when it comes to stacking up with the Alabamas, LSUs and Clemsons of the world?
The answer is simple. It's the running game.
Most of this has been out of the Longhorns' ability to fix, but the Texas running game hasn't been great since Herman got to Austin.
Yes, Keaontay Ingram had a good season last year, Sam Ehlinger is as tough as they come running the ball when he has to and Roschon Johnson has shown some upside early this season, but Texas hasn't been able to just take over a game on the ground against elite opponents, they have yet to establish themselves against pedestrian ones as well.
Look Texas had only one 100-yard rusher all of last year - 110 yards from Keaontay Ingram against an atrocious Baylor defense. This season the closest they have come is 78 yards from Keaontay Ingram against Louisiana Tech.
Once again this season's stats have to be taken with a grain of salt since Texas is paper-thin at running back until the return of Jordan Whittington and Daniel Young (both expected back midseason sometime), but the next step to becoming a dominant, elite team is taking games over on the ground.
You can argue that the Texas secondary was the real problem on Saturday. They couldn't come up with enough stops to give Sam Ehlinger a chance in the end.
Yes, that's correct. But on a larger sample size you begin to see that Texas' penchant for close games (10 games decided by seven points or fewer last year) even against teams they should be able to overwhelm comes down to an ability to chew up yardage through the heart of a defense.
Just take a look at Texas' rushing yards per game and yards per carry compared against the four teams that made the College Football Playoff last year.
| Team | Rushing yards per game | Rushing yards per attempt |
|---|---|---|
Alabama | 198 | 5.2 |
Clemson | 249 | 6.6 |
Notre Dame | 182 | 4.5 |
Oklahoma | 248 | 6.6 |
2018 Texas | 159 | 3.8 |
2019 Texas | 137 | 4.1 |
The numbers suggest that Texas is on the right track (although with a small sample size) so far this year, increasing both yards per carry and yards per game.
But now those numbers need to go up, particularly against the Rices of the world. Right now the team is shorthanded in the backfield, but there are plenty of guys who can help the Longhorns start getting closer to that magical number of 200 rushing yards per game. It can be Sam Ehlinger, Keaontay Ingram, Roschon Johnson or even help from Devin Duvernay out of the slot, but if Texas to invade college football's elite club, the invasion will have to come over the ground.
