Texas 27, Texas A&M 25.
It doesn't matter tonight, considering Texas fans are at least 72 hours from caring about anything other than the scoreboard after their most dramatic — and certainly most satisfying — triumph in at least two years. But any UT partisans still hoping for some clue about the direction of this team are going to be thwarted again in pursuit of progress anywhere else. The Longhorns came into the season with a laundry list of questions, and with one game to play have answered almost none of them.
They don't have a viable quarterback, and couldn't protect him if they did. They can't run the ball with any consistency. They don't have anything resembling a deep threat. They can't drive the ball against a respectable defense without resorting to trick plays. (Their first offensive touchdown tonight was a 41-yard double pass by receiver Jordan Shipley to tight end Blaine Irby. Their second was set up by a turnover that gave them the ball on the A&M 24-yard line.) In terms of total offense, 237 yards was Texas' worst single-game output in five years. If quarterback Case McCoy had kneeled down 26 times on his first 26 passes, it would have made no discernible difference.
Texas is still strong defensively, though, and hopelessly young offensively, and rebuilding generally, and — as of tonight — has now warded off the specter of Two Consecutive Losing Seasons. In fact, with Justin Tucker's game-winner as time expired, Texas has not only doused most of the inevitable doubts about Mack Brown's future, but still has a chance against Baylor and whoever it plays in the bowl game to build a bridge to much higher expectations in 2012. However shaky it looks in the process, Texas is inching forward. At the end of its last, best hope to go out on top of the Big 12 in Mike Sherman's fourth season,Texas A&M is right back where it started from.
Under different circumstances, there might be some solace in the fact that the Aggies were so close: Five of their six losses have come by a combined 17 points, three of them against teams ranked in the dozen of the latest BCS standings, two of them in overtime. Including tonight, five of the six have come after A&M led by at least two scores in the second half. Even after tonight, the computer polls should remain suitably impressed.
But Texas A&M wasn't an up-and-comer building toward a run in 2012: On the heels of a 6-1 finish in 2010, it was a consensus top-10 contender this summer with no glaring weaknesses. The 2011 Aggies had the savvy senior quarterback (Ryan Tannehill), the best 1-2 tailback punch in the Big 12 (Cyrus Gray and Christine Michael), a completely intact receiving corps, a nearly intact offensive line featuring at least two future draft picks and eight returning starters from a vastly improved defense under first-year coordinator Tim DeRuyter. On the other side of the season, they have six losses for the third time under Sherman and the sixth time since dumping R.C. Slocum in 2002.
If you're looking for an explanation for the gap, you might start with turnovers. After four giveaways tonight — three of them leading directly to 17 Longhorn points — the Aggies are owners of the worst turnover margin in the Big 12, and have finished —2 or worse in five of six losses. They also went 15 consecutive possessions between offensive touchdowns on their first and last drives, recalling extended end zone droughts against Oklahoma State, Arkansas and Missouri.
But whatever the cause, the effect is a blown opportunity more than a decade in the making, and a long, hard look over the next few weeks at whether Sherman is the man to deliver another one as the scenery shifts to the SEC.
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Matt Hinton is on Facebook and Twitter: Follow him @DrSaturday.