Hornography

Texas is going bowling. The Longhorns battled back from a rough start to 2014 by going 4-1 in their last five games. Next Thursday, on Thanksgiving, they close out the regular season against TCU.

Gary Patterson's squad will have a lot more on the line than the Longhorns that evening. The Horned Frogs are currently ranked No. 4 in the BCS, and a loss to Charlie Strong's Longhorns will surely knock them out running for a spot in the inaugural college football playoff. That's not to say Texas won't come out with a chip on their collective shoulder. As we've seen over the past five weeks, these Longhorns are capable of surprising anybody.

Players are coached to avoid overlooking any current opponents – or at least not imply so much publicly. I'm not a player, so we're taking this bye week to look ahead to the Longhorns' potential bowl matchup.

Texas should want to go up against A&M.

Bowl games are ultimately meaningless for teams left out of the four-team playoff. They're a good excuse for a fan base to travel to a new city and get drunk in a different area code, and not much more. They fill good airtime on talk radio and give you something to bullshit about with your cousin as you're frying a turkey. The best way to inject a little bit of guttural passion into the Texas fan base would be to close the seasons against Texas A&M.

If you want the Longhorns to play against Oregon State in the Aunt Jemima Breakfast Bowl (note: entirely made up, though I would support this as a bowl name) instead of A&M then you're either just not a fun person or scared to lose the mantle that Texas gained with that two-point victory in 2012. Sure, A&M left the Big 12 to get out of Texas' shadow, but if I've learned anything from AOL Instant Messenger profiles circa 2000-2005, it's that if you really love something you should probably let it go. If it returns then kick its ass on a neutral field – or however that saying ends.

A Texas/TAMU bowl game would be way more than an end-cap on the 2014 season. It would be the outright climax. People would plan their weeks around it. It would fill the gap between Christmas and New Year's where people don't get anything done around the office anyways. It would have both fan bases with the tinge of half-anxiety, half-anticipation in their stomachs on every play. You'd watch the game with your neighbors and talk a little shit. And that, for once, would mean something.