I'm Texas, and I Have Cable

Texas Longhorns fans are living in 'interesting' times. Whether it's watching football players Twitter beef with each other, watching the football team get fed into a wood chipper by a coach that's perpetually 7 months pregnant, watching Big 12 refs wave their penalty flags like a 4am raver light show, or watching the inevitable outcome of giving Edward Scissorhands a punting scholarship instead of tasking him with giving the placekicker a haircut that might allow him to see the uprights, Texas fans are experiencing a kick to the metaphorical testicles unlike anything I can recall. While football dominates the discussion, it's really only the latest crotch-punt in a tumultuous 24 month span. Let's see if we can hit the 'highlights' of the past 2 years.

2013

1. Taysom Hill runs for approximately 1200 yards against a defense that kept stunting like they were auditioning as extras in a JabbaWockeez documentary. (Technically, this was 25 months ago, but I'll allow it. We need the bloodletting.) This was the end of the Manny Diaz Experiment.
2. The Moxie Dreamwagon breaks an axle as Texas loses 3 of its final 4 games with the average margin of defeat being a shade under 23 points. Mack Brown kills himself in Florida a couple days before 'resigning'. RIP MACK BROWN wait he's still alive and haunting our TVs at halftime.
3. The 3 month Mack Brown as Schrodinger's Cat saga which was actually 12 months depending on where you hang your Internet fedora. There's supposed to be an umlaut on that name, but I'm already too depressed to look up the keystrokes to add it.
4. That guy.
5. And that guy.
6. And THAT GUY.

7. 

   LOL U GUYZ WANTED OLIVER

2014:

1. Charlie Strong enforces his values upon the program by kicking 83 players off the team, keeping only Tyrone Swoopes, Daje Johnson, and Shawn Watson on campus. Malcom Brown was able to stay on the roster by impersonating a wall during the cuts, and Jordan Hicks stuck around by hiding inside the ice bath he'd been living in for the last 3 years. Texas fans are somehow surprised at the lack of OL depth when UT opens its season against North Texas.
2. Texas continues to try to lure BYU into the Big 12 by granting Taysum Hill primer nocte with the DKR end zone. BYU thanks Texas for their generosity & says they'll have an answer in 2 years and to not call them they'll totally call you.
3. Charlie Strong gives Texas fans an early peek into his rebuilding plan, which consists mainly of subjecting every one to as many excruciatingly close losses as humanly possible by losing to UCLA by 3 points. He can't rebuild you unless he breaks you first, guys.
4. The Texas basketball team starts practice for their 2014 season ranked in the top ten which is a sign things will end well and not be a problem for Rick Barnes in the slightest.
5. Texas football loses to Baylor despite holding Bryce Petty to -12 yards passing in the first half because the UT offense is being run by paraplegic rhesus monkeys.
6. Rick Barnes has more depth this season than he's had in years, and we all know how well he handles having a deep bench. I decide to start writing about how Texas could make it to the Final Four because nobody likes self-inflicted chest wounds more than I do.
7. Martez Walker gets kicked off the team and banned from campus for his Ray Rice impersonation.
8. Kansas State continues its inexplicable mastery of Texas, beating the Horns 23-0. There are unconfirmed reports Bill Snyder rubbed his purple staff on the statue of DKR at halftime, which he's probably earned the right to do if I'm being completely honest.
9. TCU blows the doors off Texas 48-10, which isn't the worst loss to TCU in the space of the next 12 months. I blame this one on Joe Wickline's terrible play calls.
10. Texas loses to NBA D-League expansion team Kentucky Wildcats, which sounds alright until you realize we're talking about the peak of Texas' basketball season being 3 months prior to the postseason.

11. 

    BORDERLINE EROTIC

2015:

1. The same Texas team that seemed like it was primed to unseat Kansas for conference superiority is now flirting with a NIT berth until the last week of the season.
2. Hey, Augie's team is back & ready for another CWS run! This should be a fun season.

3. 

   LOL IM FIRIN' RICK U GUYZ

4. Rick Barnes lays all his burnt orange ties out in the sun for a few hours to prep for his new job.
   
5. Panic sets in as Texas fans watch the box scores and realize Tyler Jungmann is pitching in the pros now.
6. Further panic sets in as Texas fans realize they've been calling Taylor Jungmann 'Tyler' for the past 7 years and he's just been too polite to correct them. Also, they thought Nathan Thornhill was Taylor Jungmann and are confused enough to consider reading up on the team before June.

7. 

   LOL IM RAISIN UR FOOSBALL PRICES U GUYZ

8. Augie scrapes into the NCAA Tournament by winning the Big 12 postseason tournament, and attributes the turnaround to force-feeding Zane Gurwitz & Tres Barrera 4 pounds of trucker-grade methamphetamine. Unfortunately for Texas, Augie loses easy access to bathtub crank when Texas is forced to play their postseason games outside of the state of Oklahoma. The Horns crash & burn in the Dallas regional.
9. The Shawn Watson Era grinds to a halt in the first game of the new season, as his vaunted Hand Swoopes a Screwdriver and Tell Him to Build an Aircraft Carrier offense surprisingly fails to deliver on preseason promises. Charlie Strong demotes Watson to Assistant Head Sharpie Sniffer, a position previously given to such luminaries as Cleve Bryant and Satchel Full of Hush Money.

10. 

    LOL U GUYZ FENVES IS CALLIN BRB

11. I knew all along Kent Perkins was the key to this season, and I could totally pick him out of a lineup right now. Wait, what do you mean he's been sitting next to me this whole time? I thought that was Tyler Jungmann.
12. The Nick Rose Game
13. OK, I'm calm again.
14. AAAAAAAAAAAARRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRGHH.

I've already mentioned the events of the last week so I'm not adding them to the list, but you get the idea. Maybe the next time srr50 has his 3pm Country Kitchen speed-dating power hour with the other old ex-writers(and Kirk Kurt Kirk) they can come up with a better example, but to the best of my knowledge this has been an unprecedented amount of upheaval at Texas. The '96-'97 years were pretty rough with Mackovic, Penders, & Gus all getting the boot in fairly short order, but Dodds wasn't in any real worry for his paycheck that I recall. Beyond that, I can't remember a time when all 3 major programs - and the AD position - being in a state of flux like this. Here's hoping Texas has two DirecTV installers on campus in Strong & Shaka Smart, otherwise we're in for another year of Comcast service.