Josh Pate's Texas Win-Loss Prediction + Big Questions (Late Kick Cut)

Texas predictions it's that time let's just predict the Texas season this year here's what you need to know the over under win total is 10 and a half that's very lofty they've got the second best odds to win the SEC they've got the fourth best odds to win the whole thing this year so let me tell you some things I think I know about Texas I think I know Quin ERS should be a really big offensive weapon he's got skill he's got the experience he's playing for the right coordinator I consider Steve sarkeesian the coordinator there he's the quarterback developer sar's really really good at that so you got a multi-year starter there that should be a weapon he's he's among the top five in the heis men ODS should absolutely be a weapon there are some parts of his game that are still loose that this year should round into for him second thing I think I know about Texas is their pass rush should be very legit this year now we got questions about stopping the run I'll get to that in a second but Trey Moore was a trans for from UTSA I believe huge pickup for them was Anthony Hills there and so that's a stud but you're adding another one potentially In Trey Moore pass rush should be there Havoc rate should be through the roof no excuse for it not to be for Texas the third thing I think I know about them is yeah they're joining a tougher conference they sure are I think the SEC will have a positive impact on Texas I think it'll collectively raise their level of play too look at this lineup of teams Colin showing you right now it means something when you go into any given season and you know you have to be better than Georgia Alabama Old Miss LSU A&M Tennessee Missouri Oklahoma instead of all due respect TCU Texas Tech Kansas Iowa State whether they ever admited or not folks in Austin and even folks in Norman knew if they take care of their business the rest of their former conference shouldn't be able to touch them in the SEC you could take care of your business and still lose two games Georgia was a really good team last year they didn't even make the playoff cuz they couldn't win the conference and so in this league when you know you're in this league it's the whole tight RPP walk analogy that I've been making to you if you walk a tight RPP 10 feet off the ground and you walk a tight RPP 10 stories off the ground technically the process is still the same however there's a different level of focus there's a different way you wake up that morning there's a different way you eat breakfast and there's a different way you carry yourself to that 10 story tall tight RPP walk than there is the 10ft tall tight RPP walk cuz the ladder you know you can fall off of and it it may scrape your knee up but it's not that big a problem I mean Mick Foley's Fallen further than 10 feet many a time in his WWF career back in the day 10 stories though your Street Pizza if you fall so if you know the consequences are that then you tend to mentally carry yourself a little differently I was out there this spring you could feel it in the building you could feel it when when you talk to folks not even just on the coaching staff in the communication Department you can feel it so that's that's a big question but I I think I think I think that's the answer like I I think it'll serve them just as well as them moving to the SEC serves the depth of that conference now ask for the questions around Texas run defense huge question run defense was number three in the country last year they will probably not be number three in the country this year sweat and Murphy gone you can't replace those now you can pull the Billy Bean you know you can you can tear the top off a marker and spit it down the board and you can say we can we can replace them in the aggregate Moneyball reference they got talented players there it's Texas they're never going to hurt for talent but man that was big time talent in the middle now here's why that matters you've got to be able to control games or else a bunch of games become one possession crap shoots and the best ones are built at the line of scrimmage and they can control games that doesn't mean they never get beat that doesn't mean they never have close games the control like Michigan last year controlled games they were in one possession games most of their big ones late in the season obviously but they controlled line of scrimmage they could count on themselves to do that if you don't have that you could still win but boy there's a lot more variance that gets thrown into the potential outcome the second thing that I wonder is have we fixed the pass defense in Austin they were quietly one of the worst in the country last year they were 116th in pass yards per game allowed last year just a total invert of what they were against the Run Washington torched them this cost them a shot at a national title Washington torched them in the semi final and it was on display there it wasn't the first time Texas folks saw it but I think a lot of folks who hadn't watched Texas much said wow well yeah it's a wow cuz that was a wart they couldn't overcome have they fixed that third thing they lost lost a lot of talented pass catchers they lost their top four I lost their top five actually pass catchers now they added a lot of good ones too the way I figure it is even in the best of Worlds you added all these cats this year in the best of Worlds you hope to pull even with what you were last year and if you're beyond what you were last year that's great but that is really tough to predict so Isaiah Bond came over there from Bama they got Matthew golden Silas Bal Amari black came there from bam as well if those guys can equal roughly what your production was last year you ought to be a national title Contender it's a big if you don't just snap your fingers and do it and a lot of this portal stuff it sounds so good it is so much harder to get sort of a cross theboard pan out on that or or or validation or verification on that the staff breakdown is interesting at Texas so our internal model has Texas with the highest offensive coordinator defensive coordinator special team combo in the country we count Steve sarkeesian as the OC there because Sark calls the place so OC DC special teams coordinator it's the best one 123 combo in the country their offensive and defensive support staff we've got graded significantly lower so the overall depth of the quality there could very well be that this looks different this time next year because there's there's none of me thr into that model it's just everyone judged on the same criteria and so is there a is there a coaching quality depth situation there there there may be there may not be but at the front line they're about as good as it gets in the country sarc is an excellent OC grade he is still outside the top 25 as a head coaching grade right now for us and uh that you know that includes Washington that includes USC so he's had a checkered head coaching career so that shouldn't be a surprise now 2023 was great for him you bake in a few more of those years and quickly he goes from outside top 25 to inside top five so that kind of stuff can happen and you know what if if Sark really is a new head coach none of his past really matters anyway it doesn't matter what he was at Washington if that's a night and day difference than what he is right now but in order to be safe when we work these grades we're working your whole career and then we heavily wait more recent so we do have some recency bias in there um schedule couldn't be much better all things considered Texas could not have they asked for a much better introduction into the SEC now they do play four of my top 15 teams in the JP pole but they also play five of the bottom six teams in the SEC and um again you're not going to have an easy schedule here but that's about as good as you could have hoped for they go to Michigan in week two they start conference play against Mississippi State what's the best case here the best case for Texas is 12-0 I'll just go ahead and tell you that they got a shot to win every game they play their toughest game is against Georgia that's at home they got Oklahoma and Dallas as they do every year they they got a shot to go 12-0 their worst case is an 8-4 record I think it's most likely Texas goes 11- one this year I'm really high on them JP pole has him at number four in the preseason there is still um that there's a little more volatility in predicting Texas than I think it sounds in my voice I I say 11 and one it just rolls off the tongue no I said worst case was eight- four too and you don't I'm I'm just telling you you don't replace that much talent out whyde seamlessly you don't just magically upgrade quality of quarterback by 15% just ca he returned sometimes you do sometimes you don't you don't just replace those kind of guys on the interior of your defensive line you don't just go from 116th in pass defense to top 10 so there are questions here but it's questions relative to the rest of the country so Texas has got a workable schedule and their questions are first world questions their first world problems and so with Texas I'm going to say 11 and one but there's shakiness in my voice I'm I'm not you know I'm not falling over myself to to go and bet Max bets on every Texas game the model may but we know the model's history with Texas [Music]