Now on offense I agree, lots of pieces who could be nice role players on a great offense if there were a couple of stars sprinkled in. But then LSU and tOSU have won big with bland offenses and great defenses, so maybe?

On defense, I think Beasley will prove to be the talent you hope for. I also think Earl Thomas and Ben Wells have that potential, although both are probably a year away, conservatively. Muckelroy is probably the second best LB Mack’s had, and then of course there is Sergio Kindle. If he can get get his head on straight(question mark) and can stay healthy (big question mark) he will be better than DJ. I state this with unerring confidence.

Of course, none of those things may come to pass. Of all the guys who can potentially make that leap (Miller, Beasley, Wells, Thomas, Muck, Kindle, Chykie Brown, Orakpo) I think only Miller and Beasley, and possibly Orakpo are safe bets to do so.

Still, our raw talent is so much higher than last year that I can’t imagine not making a huge improvement overall. Muschamp has the track record to ellicit the kind of trust that would lead me to put out on a first date. So we’ll see.

Offensively, it’s just a crap shoot. Every Spring, we see stuff on that side of the ball that makes us optimistic that changes for the better are coming, but by September Davis has fallen back into his 10 yearlong rut. Can Major change that? Doubtful. Davis is still calling the shots on that side of the ball, and until he’s gone (pray that that ever does happen) that’s the way it’s going to be.

Really good post, BTW - I enjoyed it.

Really, I think we have 4 opponents. OU, Kansas, Missouri, and EverybodyelseU. Nobody other than those three deserves mention, imo, as teams that have a realistic shot to beat us. I’m not saying they won’t, just that the odds are with us here.

We will be schematically sound of defense, and almost certainly not on offense, unless Teh Major (pause for harp music . . . . ok) really shows influence over the offense. The spring game has me optimistic but not sold.

I count 7 teams that could beat us on any given day: Arkansas, OU, MU Kansas, Tech, Colorado and A&M.

Now, I’ll agree there’s only 3 teams that might beat us at least 4 out of 10 times - OU, Kansas and Missouri. The sad thing about both of those comments is that there is only 1 team on our schedule with roughly equal talent - OU.

But coaching and schemes matter, a lot, and we go into every game against quality opponents with a deficit in that area. Maybe Muschamp and Applewhite can change that this year - I surely do hope so. If we don’t have some serious scheme changes on offense, we are going to have pure hell moving the football all year long.

So listen to me at your own peril.

To add to Sasha’s point about Missouri and KU, they scare me less because of our physical ability to cover man to man. You can really disrupt a spread to quickly if you can just man up outside and not let the passing game worry your run defense.

Our pass defense from the LB spot will likely be suspect, still, depending on who is playing at any given moment, but we played Earl Thomas so much at almost an OLB position in the spring game that I have to think that we’ll just do that, instead of that base defense all the time nonsense.

However, we’re Texas. And we’re spoiled. And we expect to be challenging for the Big XII and NC every year. Which, we should be.

While Colt is no VY, I do think a lot of his problems last year stemmed from a weak OL. This year will be a good measure of his work ethic, leadership abilities, and if he is able to make the most of the talent that he has.

As C-A pointed out, all the “good” schools in the Big XII play each other this year, but Texas still has superior talent to many of those (exception to ou). While I think Mizzou & Kansas will still be good, I would not be surprised to see a significant drop off from at least one of them. Unless you have the talent, tradition, coaching, and money that the perennial powerhouses of NCAA football have, it takes more than one good year to turn around a program and become a yearly contender for a championship. Last year they were (somewhat) unexpectedly good. This year, other teams will be ready for them.

I also think a lot depends on team chemistry. Last year the guys just didn’t seem to have the fire and desire it takes to win games the way they should. That is a team leadership issue. Some of those guys need to step up in a major way between now and August.

My thought is this year’s team might be better but still struggle to win the ten, assuming the opposition is indeed tougher as everyone tends to think. We really never know, though, since I doubt much of anyone thought Mizzou and KU were going to be anywhere near that good.

And as long as everything goes to plan, I’ve got a great shot at tagging Jessica Alba tonight.