No one will hold it against Tom Herman for looking past some small Christian school in Ft. Worth to focus on the BIG one. This is the whole reason he was hired! It is rumored that Coach Herman impressed Greg Fenves and Mike Perrin so deeply upon their meeting that his hiring was immediately ensured. Reportedly he was asked “Did you know Kansas beat Texas in football?” His response:

“What I do have are a very particular set of skills, skills I have acquired over a not particularly long career. Skills that make me a nightmare for people like Kansas. If you let my dream school go now, that'll be the end of it. I will not look for you, I will not pursue you. But if you don't, I will look for you, I will find you, and I will kill you, David Beaty.”

Kansas may’ve killed our beloved Charlie (UT career-wise -- he’s alive and well and ranked), but they launched a Tom-Herman-as-Liam-Neesen-with-no-discernable-plot-other-than-badassery-and-redemption franchise. Yes, I said FRANCHISE. Oh, pshhh will there will be sequels? There will be many and it will be the same thing, over and over and over and over. Decades from now when people shout “stop, he’s already dead,” and standing over their motionless body, Tom Herman will, between Michael Dickson-like well-placed power kicks to the ribs, look up to the President’s Suite to see Fenves simply nod, before unleashing more.

There will be blood.

Oh, and we’ve even got a new name for this new blood feud -- the Bill Paxton Memorial Twister Bowl TM. That’s right, Bill Paxton, Texan (a graduate of Arlington Heights High in Fort Worth) who went on to star in a little documentary film called Twister, that while set in Oklahoma, accurately describes the life of those living in Kansas.

But which state actually has a claim to the Tornado-inest in the Union? Who else... TEXAS!

Texas is #1, Kansas is #2, and Oklahoma is a distant 3rd in land cyclone weathered. Sure if you get into the advanced stats crowd:

• Kansas: 92.4 tornadoes per year over 82,277 mi² = 1.12 x 10-3
• Texas: 146.7 tornadoes per year over 268, 597 mi² = 5.46 x 10-4

But that’s the type of math for nerds. And Tom Herman didn’t come here for that, Mensa or not. He came here for two things:

Hook ‘em

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Better Know a Roster

Now that this is our rivalry game, you better get to know these guys.

Bryce Torneden (S, SO) - Oh, so KU is just producing homegrown players from Lawrence, Kansas now? And ones named for this new Rivalry Game title I just conjured? Maybe Bill Snyder isn’t the only Wizard in Dorothy’s home state.

Hasan Defense (CB, SO) - After being recruited as a two-way player, he was pigeonholed as a receiver. Hasan resorted to a very elementary attempt at the Joe Theismann. Seems to have worked.

Cooper Root (LB, FR) - the guy just sounds gritty.

Kezelee Flomo (RB, SO) - Kez Flomo sounds like one of those “lyrically pure” street rappers that you one friend swears is so much better than Jay-Z but he refuses to sell out.

Cole Moos (P, SR) - Coal Moose sounds like either the best nickname in a terrible fraternity or the worst nickname in a great one.

Tyriek Starks (QB, FR) - Poor, poor, confused orphan child... Born Tytheon, but took the surname of his foster parents, only to have his foster brother Ramsey repeatedly insist “your name is Tyriek.”

Osaze Ogbebor (LB, JR) - I’ll admit, I’ve never seen August: Osaze County. I honestly don’t think anyone ever did. I bet it’s like a great inside joke on Jimmy Kimmel’s Lie Witness News to see which hipsters fake to having loved it.

Caperton Humphrey (FB, SO) - the hell is a Caperton?

Hunter Saulsbury (OL, SO) - they say you are what you eat, so apparently Hunter is unknowable, covered in an inexplicably simultaneous runny and quite-viscous brown sauce, and is served by ladies in hairnets.

Mesa Ribordy (OL, SO) - I like the idea of a lineman named “table.”

Kashe Boatner (LB, FR) - Of course “Cash Boatner” is a white dude from a town in Alabama that is misspelled. Kash him ousside (the town library slash crematorium), how Boat dat?

DeeIsaac Davis (DT, SR) - His name is apparently D-eye-sic, but I definitely read it as “Deal sack” and it sounded like Amazon’s most iffy product delivery method yet.

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Gridiron

Rest in peace, KU Gridiron Club

2010-2010

“We never even knew ye”

The 2007 season saw coach Mark Mangino (and Pass Game Coordinator Tim Beck) and the Kansas Jayhawks go 11-1 in the regular season and ultimately win a BCS Bowl! Only something that drastic could make their 2008, 8-win (including bowl victory) campaign seem down, and lead to firing of said head coach after winning the first five...and subsequently losing the final 7 in 2009.

After a tough season for an obviously relevant Big Time program, Kansas needed a way to ratchet up the support and rake in the alumni dollars. They fired the BCS-winning coach (but probably for acting like Jabba the Hut more than being his doppelganger), but things would look up. They were announcing the KU Gridiron Club! For Winners! Winners who have won in the business and now want to come together to win in the football!

Since they announced this project, signalling that they were a Football School, Kansas has gone...15-78! The Gridiron Club is still...in progress.

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Around the World

• David Beaty is 3-30 as a head coach, with wins against SEMO, Rhode Island, and...Texas. He has only once in three seasons been able to collect that $100k bonus for beating a Power-5 team. You’re welcome.
• Kansas hadn’t beaten Texas since 1938. Almost exactly 79 years ago, when Texas last lost to the Jayhawks, Orson Welles was reading “War of the Worlds” in the inaugural broadcast of Fox Fake News.
• Battle for the Bottom (was going to call this the Shootout in Waco, but 1) they played in Kansas and b) that can reference multiple things in Waco iii) that biker gang, Waco Twin Peaks shootout reached a mistrial today...)
• Baylor, the country’s “most dangerous winless team” beat Kansas on their home field almost as convincingly as Texas beat Baylor on theirs. Baylor is now the “most dangerous 1-win team.” Watch out, you guys.
• After the game, 3-star KU commit Clayton Tune decommitted and 247 predicts will flip to Baylor, lol.
• Kansas is definitely the worst Power 5 team in the country. It should be remember that TCU at one point in the 4th quarter two weeks ago had 450 yards in offense while Kansas had minus-12.
• As you know, the Pregamer is long a student of anagrams, so it’s utterly perfect that I realized this week that Bedlam = “Blame D,” after an offensive explosion that would take this Texas team 3 years to replicate.
• Happy 148th Birthday, CFB! This week marked the 148th anniversary of the time Rutgers beat Princeton by a Saban-esque 6-4. Also of note, Bill Snyder was a spry QB coach, molding star pupil J.T. Barrett.
• Texas has at least the 5th hardest Strength of Schedule and the 8th most efficient defense. This somehow translates to them being 21st in ESPN’s Power Index and 23rd in the Sagarin rankings (that’d be good enough to put on the side of the stadium at certain schools in Texas). Texas is back!
• There’s finally some clear direction in the position battle we’ve spent all season watching and debating, with two guys who can, to some extent, both get it done with their legs -- Senior Mitchell Becker has leaped Josh Rowland on the kicker depth chart.
• Thoughts and Prayers for Charlie Weis. Following his Notre Dame payout of $2 million per year after leaving (totalling just under $19m) ran dry in late 2015, the Kansas buyout of $5.6m extended only through Dec. 31 2016. That means Big Chuck has gone almost an ENTIRE YEAR not being paid by employers who would rather pay him to not be associated with them. Poor kid.

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Predictions

Kyle Carpenter: Kansas does not beat Texas in football. This does not result in the firing of a second consecutive Texas coach. Mo Bamba also beats Kansas in shooty hoops. Texas by 5 scores.

I also predict that two of the other members of this Pregamer “team” come back from China ready to crank out #content.

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Parting Shot