Texas Longhorns
2000 record: 9-3 (7-1).
Coach: Mack Brown (4th year, 27-11).
Starters returning: 9 offense, 8 defense.
Outlook: Mack Brown spent last year lowering expectations -- telling anyone who would listen that his players were talented but too young to mount a title run. Sorry, Mack. You'll get no such slack this year.
The fourth-year coach has 37 of his top 44 players back. As many as 16 juniors and seniors could start. And Brown has canned his two-man quarterback rotation, naming junior Chris Simms the starter over gutsy senior Major Applewhite. The problem is, he may not have canned the controversy. Sure, Simms passed for 868 yards after Applewhite injured his knee and missed the final three games of last year. But Applewhite, the former Big 12 offensive player of the year, is a proven winner who will push Simms. Simms threw almost as many interceptions (7) as he did touchdowns (8) last year. After a solid spring, he has to prove that he can deliver to sophomore receiver sensations Roy Williams and B.J. Johnson and tight end Bo Scaife. The Longhorns could be looking to a true freshman running back, Cedric Benson, to take pressure off of the quarterbacks. Benson, who rang up an ungodly 8,423 rushing yards in high school, reminds some of Ricky Williams.
The Longhorns have to fill three huge holes on the offensive and defensive lines with the losses of mammoth offensive tackle Leonard Davis and defensive beasts Casey Hampton and Shaun Rogers. But they have great linebackers and arguably the best secondary in the nation returning.
Keep an eye on: Roy Williams. Williams is a dazzling combination of height, hands and horsepower. As a true freshman last year, he led the Longhorns with 809 yards on 40 catches -- a stunning 20.2 yard per-catch average. But his other numbers are even more stark -- 6-5, 210 pounds, 10.3 in the 100 meters and a 6-feet, 10-inch high jump.
Key game: Oklahoma, Oct. 6 (at Dallas). The Red River rivalry is always the key game for Texas. But this year, it's almost the only game. With a weak schedule -- Texas Tech, Colorado and Texas A&M pose the only other challenges -- Texas has to beat Oklahoma, plain and simple. If the Longhorns stumble, they have to win out and hope that OU loses twice, which is highly unlikely.
It's a good year if... Simms avoids turnovers and an uprising by Applewhite, Brown finds a running game and the Longhorns play up to their Texas-sized expectations, rather than downplaying them.
Todd Cooper is a staff writer for the Omaha World-Herald.
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