Kings Of Kaos, Week Five: It’s A Texas Trainwreck, Y’all!

In a battle for most chaotic team of the decade, forget Lane Kiffin getting capped on an airport tarmac. The real contest should be between Texas 2015 and Texas 2013. It was only two years ago that the Horns finished atop The Chaos Index when we wrote this at the end of the 2013 season:

God, what a mess. Boosters planting stories of Mack’s resignation while he was out on the road recruiting. Rick Perry – an Aggie honk – trying to push him out the door. Nick Saban leaving his latest contract extension unsigned for a week while the world figured he was heading for Austin. Mack refusing to leave. Mack leaving. Right after Nick Saban reupped in Tuscaloosa. Charlie Strong hired. Charlie Strong insulted by key boosters. What a year, boys!

How do you top that. Howzabout if:

• A freshman retweets a “Y’all should transfer to A&M” tweet at halftime of a game.
• The major league baseball team that shares the state’s name with you tweets “Fire Charlie” during the game.
• You give your hated rival that you never play any more cannon fodder to call you a “cupcake”. Douchebaggery, sure, but it’s hard to look at the douchebag in question and say, “Are not! Are not!” when you currently are.

And now, we’re in the run-up to the Red River Shootout, er, Showdown. Remember how you were ready to run Mack Brown out of town until the 2013 game until you shocked the Sooners, after which we wrote this:

As expected, the game was a blowout. It doesn’t get much better than ending a losing streak against the hated rival you still lower yourself to appear with on a football field every year, especially when you’re a two touchdown ‘dog. Tragically for the Longhorn faithful, they’ll have to stop bitching about Mack Brown for a week. Little would have been more entertaining than to watch him announce his retirement on live TV immediately after the game, especially if he’d have announced he was hanging up his horns as soon as the 2014 season was done.

Ah, sweet blissful memories. Things could never get that ugly again, right?

Silly us. Let’s recap the fun facts for the first half of 2015:

• Week One was that ugly bludgeoning at the hands of the Irish. Hey, there’s no shame in getting a Notre Dame beatdown. At least, not if you’re UMass or another G5 bottom-feeder, though those eight first downs and 163 yards of offense seemed a trifle frail.
• Week Two: a win! Over a former SWC rival, no less! Also, a bigger win: Steve Patterson was kindly shown the door.
• Week Three: a thrilling comeback from three touchdowns back in the fourth quarter! Never mind that you gave up 31 straight points to Cal after going up by ten. What? They missed the extra point? Oh, damn.
• Week Four: seriously? The punter dropped the snap with less than a minute to go?   Before you blame the kid, need we point out Oklahoma State was going to get the ball around their 40 yard line? Trust us, you’d have found a way to implode. At least this was more memorable than a drive to your 33, followed by a 50-yard field goal for the win.
• And now this: down 30-0 before the first quarter was in the archives. Down 50-0 before scoring that meaningless touchdown. And yet, there was the creativity of it too, finding a way to work in a callback to the OSU game with another botched punt snap. Don’t tell us you don’t know what you’re doing, Texas.

Texas, y’all are one of a kind! We’ll always love you for this, ‘Horns! But we’ll always love you more for being so magnificently combustible.

Welcome to 1-5 guys! Rest assured of three things:

1. You’re the best 1-5 team in the land, hands down.
2. No one will ever have a more interesting series of disasters on a football field.   Ever. (Until next week, of course.)
3. The rumors that Saban (and his personal umbrella holder) are coming to save you will be starting again shortly.

We keep expecting you to explode at any minute and deliver a massive whupping to somebody. Of course, we expected that before the TCU game, and look what happened. Please, please, please make it happen soon, and there’s precedent with Oklahoma. It’s also your last chance to smack somebody meaningful unless we count the Baylor game, and you don’t think we count on that after TCU, do you?

We believe in you, Texas, and we want to see you go bowling.

Little would be more entertaining than to see you playing Old Dominion in the Zaxby’s Heart of Dallas Bowl. Hell, if there’s a way to resurrect the Poulan Weed Eater Bowl just for you, we’re totally in favor of that.* College football is so much more fun when you’re feeling burnt orange in the face.

Plus, we really respect Charlie Strong (seriously), and we don’t want to see anything bad happen to him.

*And yes, we know they still play the game, but with six sponsors in the last 19 years, it’s hard to keep track, and nothing says cheesy bowl game like “Poulan Weed Eater”.