Hornucopia

The Red River Shootout was PC-ed into the Red River Rivalry post-Columbine, but for the Horns the past two years, it's been the Red River Reality. This is becoming the annual "tough love" affair where we realize we'll have to deal with the fact that our team and our coaches just aren't any good.

Savannah State was laughing their asses off during the Horns' 36-2 first-half loss to Oklahoma on Saturday. Horns halftime motivational speaker Joel Osteen was seen slinking out of the Cotton Bowl late in the second quarter ("I got nothing"), when OU had already amassed more than 400 yards of offense to UT's single first down. Mrs. John Wayne Gacy had a better half.

The Horns shit the bed Saturday morning with a performance so dreadful, a highlight was having a fumble overturned on replay so Texas had to punt instead. How overmatched was Texas? We were Jared from Subway; they were Sonny Liston.

The Horns' first six possessions ended in punt, punt, punt, punt, INT, safety, while the Crimson crew started off TD, punt, TD, TD, TD, punt, TD. We were manhandled at the line and it just spread from there like trench mouth.

Outcoached, outplayed, outhustled, outtackled, outblocked – Texas came out of the "good team" closet against Oklahoma. Again. Mack Brown, a $5 million-a-year pastry chef, goes for character guys who get their asses kicked annually by OU thugs and then thank Jesus. Christ, when you're down 63-8 against an archrival and leaving the game with an injury, as QB David Ash did, the finger you point to the heavens should not be the index.

Not only was the Texas season basically over at halftime, we don't have A&M on the schedule to possibly save it.

Overrated like Paxil, the Horns lost the game 63-21 and their All-American candidate DE Jackson Jeffcoat for the season with a ruptured pectoral muscle, but they weren't the only team exposed as padded frauds. Last week's UT opponents, the West Virginia Mountaineers, were humiliated in Lubbock by Texas Tech 49-14. Ranked No. 5 after beating Texas 48-45 on the road, the Brokeback Mountaineers crawled back to whatever the crappy college town is in West Virginia, with their tails between their legs.

Texas plays the guys who stomped the guys who beat us in Buddy Holly, Texas, on November 3. "Oh, Boy."

After the Horns try and stop Baylor's Nick Florence and Terrance Williams, leading the nation in passing and receiving yardage, respectively, at home next week, they play 1-6 Kansas on the road. Two weeks ago, those looked like easy wins, but after OU showed that UT's O is as bad as the Manny _iaz defense – ranked No. 99 in the country after yielding 677 yards to Oklahoma – Texas could actually lose both of those. C'mon Jayhawks, join the Horns Humiliation Tour! After certain defeat at Texas Tech, the Horns play ranked Iowa State and TCU at home, then go up to Woody Allen's favorite city in Kansas to play the fourth-ranked K-State Wildcats. Not an easy run.

Could Texas lose out? That's doubtful, but they certainly performed like a 4-8 team against the Sooners. Unable or unwilling to step up, the 2012 Horns make it seem like Mack is short for Mackovic or McWilliams. Remember '97 and '91?

The championship season of 2005 was so long ago, the hero is now working as a greeter at a Downtown steak house. Since losing the 2009 championship game to an inferior Alabama team on a fluke injury to Colt McCoy, Texas is 17-14. We've lost more games in the past three and a half years than we did the previous eight. This is a program on a dive of Mel Gibsonian proportions.

Coach Mack Brown can't be loving his job, but that shouldn't be a problem next season, when his greatest concern (when he's not analyzing college football for ESPN) will be overseeing the building in the university's athletic complex that will bear his name: the Mack Brown Center for Recruitment and Coddling. Actually, they won't have to build it, just rename the players' lounge.