AUSTIN — Riding through the streets of Paris on July 24, we saw a winner who could be claimed by any city, in America or the world, for there's never been a winner quite like Lance Armstrong, who retired on the Champs Elysees with his seventh consecutive Tour de France championship.

We're wondering now if Lance Armstrong is the greatest athlete of all time. And it's a silly question, as always, comparing apples with oranges, bananas and grapes.

But, just sticking with apples and oranges, consider how Armstrong has dominated the premier event in a particular kind of sport, an individual sport in which the competitors don't directly confront each other one-on-one style. That eliminates tennis, boxing and wrestling, but leaves under consideration golf, diving, gymnastics, figure skating, auto racing and the events of track and field.

Diving, gymnastics and figure skating are judged, which doesn't mean their greats aren't great. But it remains that a judge decides, rather than a
clock or a score. They're a bit like college football that way. So, throw them out and we're down to golf, athletics and car racing.

And the comparisons remain imperfect. Some will say bicycling is a team sport with teammates responsible for drafting, creating interference and so forth. Fine. To what extent is a team championship in the Tour de France even recognized? The team's purpose is to support its dominant individual. But it remains that a team supports the individual, as Armstrong acknowledged from the podium in Paris.

With all Armstrong's additional talk about equipment and mechanics, maybe bike racing is most comparable with auto racing. If so, no driver's dominance is any match for Armstrong, as no driver has won the Indianapolis 500 or the Daytona 500 more than twice in a row.

And no one has ever dominated the major golf events the way Armstrong has dominated the Tour. For the record, no golfer has ever won the Masters three years in a row and it's been more than 100 years since Willie Anderson won three straight U.S. Opens (1903-05). Nor has anyone ever won the U.S. Women's Open three straight times.

The dominant long-term performance in track and field history belongs to Edwin Moses, who won the 400-meter hurdles finals 107 consecutive times, 1977-1987, breaking the world record four times along the way. Way back in 1983, by the way, Moses came out strong against steroids in his sport, which didn't make him the most popular guy around. Cycling lies somewhere between a team sport with heavy individual aspects, like pro basketball, and an entirely individual sport, like most track events. But no event can be compared with the Tour de France, which isn't compressed into three hours, or even a week, or seven games in ten days. It's 21 races in 23 days, covering 2,232.7 miles of mountainous French roadway.

We don't want to say Lance Armstrong is the greatest athlete ever — only that no other athlete has ever come along quite like him. What we've seen here is so singular that no possibility of comparison presents itself.

The comment often has been made, rightly, that American sports fans don't truly or care about bicycle racing. But that's kind of the point. They watched Armstrong, anyway. He made Americans who don't care about any sports care about his victory, because his victory goes well beyond sports.

What can be said about an athlete who seven straight times won the most grueling athletic competition in the world right after being diagnosed with cancer that started in his testicles, then metastasized to his lungs and brain, leaving him only a three percent chance to survive by some estimates? It doesn't matter what's said about it. What matters is what it says.

More than any other championship athlete to come along, Lance Armstrong has deep meaning about life, about the will to live and prosper. Other champions have faced adversity, and you can read all about it. But it sounds almost comical to say Armstrong faced adversity.

And at the moment Armstrong attained his greatest achievement, he also ended his athletic career. With that, we began to wonder what's next for this remarkable life.

The annual surveys of the French mountians are over, the 120-mile training sessions at altitude are over, the days of the dope squad banging on his door four times per year asking for his urine are over. But Lance Armstrong isn't over. Some say politics is next. He's only just begun.

Written August 4, 2005
Posted October 20, 2005, 11 a.m.

Raffy turns fame to infamy

Points: A Sports Column

Up until last month, Rafael Palmiero distinguished himself as a future Hall of Famer without ever being famous. An all-time great without ever being a great of a specific time. Since coming up with the Chicago Cubs in 1986, Palmiero has reached the top ten in either league's MVP voting only three times, topping out at fifth in 1999.

But he kept sneaking up on the Hall of Fame benchmarks. In 2003, with the Texas Rangers, Palmiero reached 500 homers. Asked if the milestone clinched Palmiero's Hall of Fame inclusion, one voter said, "Never heard of him." Ball fans by then knew the facts of home run inflation, figuring Palmiero came in on the tailwind.

Then Palmiero reached 3,000 hits on July 15 and the engravers started working on his plaque. Anyone can figure the Steroid Era somehow factored into his approach to 600 homers, but 3,000 hits isn't a feat of muscle. What could stand in Palmiero's way?

Now we know. In less than a month, Palmiero's name has journeyed all the way from anonymity to fame to infamy. That's life in sports these days, 20 seasons turned inside-out, upside-down in 20 days.

One day, Palmiero is just another guy, a bit better than average, but not truly one of the greats. The next day, Palmiero is compared with Willie Mays, Henry Aaron and Eddie Murray, since they're the only four players with 500 homers and 3,000 hits. President Bush calls him with congratulations. A day later still, he's compared with Enron executives and Oliver North, who've been suspected of lying to Congress. Palmiero may have achieved the unimaginable, making a truth teller out of Jose Canseco.

Suddenly, the pointed finger has become the new symbol of lying in America. Bill Clinton said, "I did not have sexual relations with that woman, Miss Lewinsky." Rafael Palmiero said, "I have never used steroids. Period." Both made their remarks with pointed fingers.

But Palmiero pointed his finger at a House panel investigating steroid use in baseball, as if to chastise the chamber for being so presumptuous to ask. Now, it appears Palmiero's presumption went well beyond finger pointing.

Palmiero is serving a ten-game suspension since the news on Aug. 2 that he tested positive for steroids. In response to Palmiero's denial that he intentionally used steroids, a Major League Baseball official released the details of Palmiero's test to The New York Times, just so there will be no misunderstanding. And it is hard to misunderstand this one — or understand it — because the steroid found in Palmiero's system is stanozolol, a potent substance not found in dietary supplements.

In other words, it has to be injected or ingested, and intentionally so, unless Canseco is a complete fool. Which is a live question.

"Why would I do this in a year when I went in front of Congress and I testified and I told the truth?" Palmiero asked reporters when news broke of his suspension. "Why would I do this during a season where I was going to get to 3,000 hits? It just makes no sense. ... I'm not a crazy person."

Palmiero must have figured the reporters knew the answer. But no one knows the answer if he doesn't. Now Congress wants answers, initiating a probe to determine if Palmiero committed perjury.

All the reporters know is whether they think Palmiero will belong in the Hall of Fame. And lots of voters say they'll still vote for him, because steroids weren't prohibited by MLB for much of his career, it's now widely suspected lots of players in his era took them and we don't really know for the most part who did and who didn't.

But that's a dodge. Steroid use was, is and will be a crime in America, which happens to be the only country in which major league baseball is played. And we know Palmiero has taken them. We just don't know exactly when.

Rafael Palmiero is a man of pleasantry and charity. But a big "kick me" sign is pasted to his back, and he put it there.

Once and for all, in case any doubt arose in the last few weeks, we also know Palmiero really doesn't belong in the same company as Mark McGwire and Sammy Sosa. After all, McGwire kept his mouth shut before Congress and Sosa grunted out short answers just to be safe. Palmiero decided to put on a show. And whether the show was tragedy or comedy, it's really worse than either. Infamy.

Written August 16, 2005
Posted October 20, 2005, 11 a.m.

On practice, privacy and probity

Points: A Sports Column

AUSTIN — College football season is right around the corner, which means speculation about Mack Brown's paranoia has surfaced already.

Brown decided on Aug. 12 to close all but one of the remaining University of Texas preseason football practices open to the media. He cited privacy concerns, which are the concerns compelling most football coaches to close their practices. But the privacy concern Brown cited raises a probity concern.

The decision came after the Austin American-Statesman posted an injury to receiver Jordan Shipley on its website about 15 minutes after it occurred during an Aug. 11 practice. Following is Brown's official reason, pulled from his official website at texassports.com:

"A parent should never have to read on the Internet or hear through the media that their son has been hurt before we can even get off of the practice field and call them," Brown said. "It's our responsibility to protect the privacy of our student-athletes with regard to injuries. It's just not right for a report to be posted immediately regarding an injury before we even have the chance to determine the extent of it."

Absurd.

The privacy concerns are dubious, at best. Brown, Shipley, his family and every family sending a son to the University of Texas football team know quite well beforehand that they're involved in an enormously popular enterprise followed by millions of zealous fans who create a bottomless market for credible information. The Longhorns, due much to Brown's reviving influence, are a top five football program at the flagship university in a state where football is a state religion. How much privacy can they expect, particularly when the mother's milk of their operation is publicity?

Players are often injured during football games. Sometimes, the parents can see the games, and sometimes they can't. Do we exclude the news media from football games because the public might learn of an injury before the player's family? Do we black out the games when players are injured? Not when there's television money at stake. Not when the mass media generates millions of dollars in free publicity, creating value for tickets and merchandise. Brown's argument just doesn't wash.

Football is an inherently violent game in which people get hurt. When players are hurt, people want to know. And they have a right to know. Admittedly, the public's right to know about football injuries is relatively trivial. But the individual's right to privacy suggested by Brown's argument is wacky, if it obtains at all. The team's customers want to know who's going to play and who can't. Football teams, including UT, acknowledge as much, issuing injury reports in a timely manner. They just don't issue the reports immediately.

Yes, a polite society would prefer that any family know about the misfortunes of its loved ones before the news is disseminated to the public at large. But this society isn't that polite.

There is, in Brown's defense, a right to privacy. It's just not the right he cited. It's the right to private association. A football practice is not a public meeting. Brown doesn't have to allow the public to watch his football practice. He doesn't even have to let the media watch.

And it's clearly not in a football coach's interest to let the media watch practice, except to improve relations with a better-informed media. But a danger lurks in that the media could disclose information that under-cuts the team's strategic purposes, which is why teams and the media often live by gentlemen's agreements keep certain aspects of practice private. The media gives up a lot blood in the deal, but it's better than nothing.

Fans are another matter. Some of them are fans of other teams. And Brown has no leverage over the information generated by fans, except to keep them out of practice entirely.

There's no disputing a football coach's right to close practices. If it's ever been challenged in court, it hasn't gone very far, nor could it. Brown doesn't have to give a reason. Or, he could say he's conducting a multi-million dollar operation, he doesn't want a bunch of eyeballs on his football team until it's finished and he wishes to claim the same advantages assumed by other football coaches.

So why did he give a bad reason?

Because Brown takes perception seriously, which is at once why he opened practices to begin with and why he's got a reputation for thin skin. If he gives no reason, which is the good reason, he alienates the fans and media. But a questionable reason raises questions. Let the paranoia watch begin.

Written August 24, 2005
Posted October 20, 2005, 11 a.m.

Hayden's a hero, but those kids ...

Points: A Sports Column

Texas is so immersed in football that one of its own can venture elsewhere to become king. And that same guy can live in retirement as the godfather of Texas football's most tormenting nemesis.

The Touchdown Club of Houston recently named Hayden Fry its Touchdowner of the Year. The award recognizes long-time meritorious service to football. Fry's achievements ran from his state championship as the quarterback at Odessa High in 1946 to his retirement as the University of Iowa's head coach in 1998. That's 52 years. He qualifies.

In West Texas, Fry is a native son. Born in Eastland, Fry took Odessa to a 14-0 record in his senior season, winning the state title with a 21-14 win against San Antonio Jefferson, starring Kyle Rote.

In the Metroplex area, Fry is a hero. He took his first college head coaching job in 1962 at Southern Methodist University, which won two games over the previous two years. In five years, he won the Southwest Conference championship. North Texas had won seven games in three years when Fry took over in 1973. He left six years later with a 40-23-3 record.

In Iowa, Fry is a deity. The Hawkeyes had lost more than they won for 17 consecutive years when Fry arrived in 1979. The Iowa offense was off tackle left, off tackle right, incomplete pass and punt. Of all the schools to break the Ohio State-Michigan stranglehold on the Big Ten, no one imagined Iowa.

Three years later, in 1981, Fry beat two top ten teams (Nebraska and UCLA), then beat Michigan, Iowa's first win against the Wolverines in 23 years. The season ended at the Rose Bowl, Iowa's first trip there since 1959.

Fry's free-wheeling offense won and filled seats, so many that Iowa expanded Nile Kinnick Stadium three times before he retired in 1998. Fry almost returned the Heisman Trophy to Iowa behind the legendary performances of quarterback Chuck Long, who barely lost the honor to Bo Jackson in 1985. Long became the first Big Ten quarterback to pass for 10,000 career yards.

The boy from Odessa changed the look and feel of football in the Midwest. The Iowans loved the way his flamboyant, Texas folksiness emboldened their own restrained folksiness. He gave them a show, made them feel good, turned them into winners - 143-89-6 with 14 bowl appearances, including three Rose Bowls, over 20 years.

Fry's impact as a force for good in Iowa can't be over-estimated. Iowa isn't like Dallas or Houston, where diversion is around the next corner. It's more like West Texas, where people live miles from their neighbors. To bring all those people to a common passion is the work of a king — with a knack for promotional genius.

Changing the entire culture, Fry received permission to copy the uniforms of the Pittsburgh Steelers, saying he wanted the Hawks to at least look like winners. He introduced the tiger hawk emblem, soon sprayed on rooftops and silos across Iowa.

Understanding how to reach people, Fry coached with a social conscience. It's well known he integrated the SWC by signing Jerry LeVias at SMU in 1962. During the 1980s, as Iowa endured terrible economic times, Fry put the ANF emblem - for America Needs Farmers - on the team's helmets, drawing attention to the problem.

His formula was to recruit good people, teach them a good game of football and move forward. Iowa now is beginning to replace Miami of Ohio as the Cradle of Coaches. Among the former Fry assistants running their own programs are Bill Snyder at Kansas State, Barry Alvarez at Wisconsin, Dan McCarney at Iowa State and Kirk Ferentz, Fry's replacement at Iowa.

Which is to leave out the most significant name. In 1979, Fry recruited a defensive back from Youngstown, OH, who became a four-year starter. The kid stuck around as a graduate assistant, then worked two more years with Fry as a volunteer assistant before moving on with his life's work. The kid put in his time as co-defensive coordinator under Snyder at Kansas State, then helped win the national championship as defensive coordinator at Florida in 1996.

In 1999, Oklahoma hired Bob Stoops as its head coach, a move that has largely minimized Texas' gains from hiring Mack Brown in 1998. In only his second season at OU, starting a year later than Brown, Stoops won the national championship at Oklahoma.

Now, the Sooners have beaten Texas five straight times. During those five years, Oklahoma is 60-7, competing for the national title annually after banishing Texas to the sidelines on the first or second Saturday of every October. Stoops' offensive coordinator? Chuck Long.

Meanwhile, Hayden Fry is retired near Las Vegas. Texas born and bred, his progenies are no friends of Texas football, except to the Texas players who pick Oklahoma because they expect a better chance to win there.

But they still love Hayden Fry in Iowa. And in Oklahoma, they ought to.

Written August 31, 2005
Posted October 20, 2005, 11 a.m.

Hope falls eternal in Texas

Points: A Sports Column

Texas is another country, it's true, and thank heaven for that, always, but especially at the start of September.

Up in the United States, they're gripped by a bizarre fixation with springtime. It's kind of like Pluto in much of America during the early months of the year, cold, white, dreary and lonely.

A winter affliction commonly known as cabin fever turns the Americans into head cases with head colds. They cage themselves up like zoo animals in houses and office spaces, ingeniously navigating through downtowns in skyway tunnels and heated parking garages, where they warm up their cars for comfortable driving to other warm places. That means not the outdoors.

In the far northern United States, such as in Minnesota, it's common for people to plug the headbolts of their engines into headbolt heaters that work with ordinary household AC outlets, just so their cars will start in the morning, if they don't have garages. Those in the United States who own garages put them to an odd use. They store their cars in them overnight.

Where on earth, then, do they keep their junk? In their basements. For those who live in the middle of Texas, a basement is the result of pouring the house's foundation underground, giving the house an additional floor beneath the ground floor. But there's not much running to the basement to check on junk in the winter. It's too cold.

Then spring arrives, renewing not just the love in a young man's heart, but the possibility for ease and pleasure outdoors, in the community, with one's neighbors. The ice melts, the snow disappears, and with it, the life of ease returns. In many locations, the arrival of pitchers and catchers to spring training in Florida and Arizona means, nature be willing, only six more weeks of winter. Baseball is the game of spring. With baseball, as with spring, life begins anew.

But Texas is another country, it's true, and thank heaven for that, always, but especially at the start of September.

In Texas, the cold of winter is mostly a rumor, with unfortunate exceptions on the high plains. It is not ours, in general, to curse the bitterness of winter, but to avert the stifling, oppressive summer heat. We cage ourselves like zoo animals in houses and office spaces, worried that our cars will warm up too much, all too seldom praising Thomas Edison and Willis Carrier for their humanitarian invention of air conditioning.

In July, though, football teams begin training. When the Dallas Cowboys set up camp in the cool climes of Oxnard, CA, it means, nature be willing, only six more weeks of summer. Most Texas football teams aren't so fortunate to get away, of course. In September, when football season starts, it will all be worth it. They hope.

And that's what September is about in Texas. Hope. In America, hope springs eternal. In Texas, hope falls eternal. Football is the game of fall. With football, as with fall, life begins anew. The fall arrives, renewing not just the love of a young man's heart, but the possibility of ease and pleasure outdoors, in the community, with one's neighbors. The sun begins to drop, the oven temperatures disappear and, with that, a life at ease with nature returns.

School begins, the young return to training for prosperity, the community takes up its normal business, we see more of each other. No longer shut in with air conditioning, apart from one another, we are restored to common purposes. In so many communities, the football stadium brings this great change together.

It's often noted that football is a state religion in Texas. If so, then the football stadium is a temple. We worship the sun's divine mercy for sparing us further of its brutality. We celebrate with massive congregations of our communities, every Friday night under the high school lights, on cooling Saturday afternoons at the college campuses, in the climate-controlled dens of professional warriors and in taverns and restaurants throughout the state with satellites to show us games.

It's safe to go out again, for communities to share their passions and aspirations through their youths, who paid the price on the scorched practice fields of July. On Friday night, at the end of a week putting up with professional adversaries, loafers and whatever else we must endure to pay our bills, we watch the kids lay it on the line, and life seems right and possible and exciting again under a calming sky with the sun long gone and not so fondly remembered.

What makes football so special to Texas? Because Texas is another country, and thank heaven for that. Especially at the start of September. It's football season.

Written September 8, 2005
Posted October 20, 2005, 11 a.m.

San Antonio's cynical play for Saints

Points: A Sports Column

More often than in any other town, football season ends in New Orleans.

In the last 69 years, the duration of the polling era in college football, 20 national champions have finished their seasons in the Sugar Bowl, more than any other game. Nine Super Bowls have been played in New Orleans, the most of any city.

This year, in a voodoo twist, the football season begins with New Orleans, because football is back, but New Orleans is gone, at least for the time being. The big one everyone knew would hit finally hit last week, taking one of our greatest cities and maybe thousands of its people.

About 250,000 Hurricane Katrina refugees fled in the last week from Louisiana to Texas. Among them are the New Orleans Saints, who've set up base in San Antonio. As many as 10,000 refugees sheltered in San Antonio, which fronted more than $1 million in relief funds as of Sept. 7.

But just as San Antonio gives to New Orleans with one hand, indications have it that San Antonio is working behind the scenes to take with the other.

The San Antonio Express-News reported on Sept. 7 that a source close to Saints owner Tom Benson said Benson "has a strong interest" (the newspaper's words) in permanently moving to San Antonio. The newspaper added that some city leaders are ready to accommodate him.

San Antonio businessman and former Minnesota Vikings owner Red McCombs went so far as to tell the newspaper that San Antonio Mayor Phil Hardberger is working behind the scenes for a permanent move.

But is that the right move?

Many elements in San Antonio have long coveted an NFL team - McCombs so much that he actually owned one for a while. San Antonio built the Alamodome specifically with the unsatisfied hope of luring the NFL. Fortunately for San Antonio, the Alamodome still has proved to be a successful public works project, almost entirely paid for by the time it opened in 1993.

Now, the opportunity for an NFL team in San Antonio is at hand, but how desperate and pitiless must San Antonio be to pursue it? If San Antonio should be the host for Saints home games that can't be played in Baton Rouge this season, that works for everybody. But to make a permanent play for the Saints at a time like this?

Well before the hurricane, the Saints and Louisiana faced an uncertain future together. The state wanted to renegotiate its agreement with the Saints because tourism taxes haven't covered the state's payments to the team — $186.5 million over ten years ending in 2010. And the state's proposals to renovate the Superdome haven't satisfied the Saints, who want a new stadium.

But it looks like Benson can have a new stadium in New Orleans if the Superdome is deemed structurally unsound from hurricane damage and federal funds defray the costs for a replacement. Now, more than ever, New Orleans needs the Saints as a rallying point for its recovery.

If San Antonio were truly making a permanent play for the Saints, it would mark the most callous pirating of a franchise in the history of American sports.

Brooklynites still fume over the Dodgers moving to Los Angeles and Clevelanders needed a new iteration of the Browns before they could heal from Art Modell's move to Baltimore. But who would ever forgive San Antonio for taking the Saints, one of New Orleans' most identified symbols, right during New Orleans' most terrible hour?

There's got to be a better way to bring in an NFL franchise.

The jazz players called New Orleans "The Big Easy," because they could always find work there, but residents and tourists were enamored of every other kind of ease in a city that always danced with its own demise. New Orleans lived on the edge, almost over the edge, ten feet below sea level in places, next to the Gulf of Mexico and a lake twice its size, with the Mississippi River running through the middle of town. Easy pickings for Hurricane Katrina.

Are the Saints easy pickings for San Antonio? Maybe, too easy?

AUSTIN — Bad news for college football fans. The season now one month old might put them to sleep. Mack Brown better hope so.

Usually, we're into October before the top two teams have separated themselves. Even then, the remaining schedule usually plants a tree in the road for each team, keeping hope alive for the other contenders. But the Fall of 2005 was cast before Sept. 20.

First, Southern California quarterback Matt Leinart decided last winter to return, making USC the clear No. 1 team as he seeks his second Heisman Trophy and third national championship. On Sept. 10, the second-rated team in both polls, Texas, consolidated its position with a classic 25-22 win at Ohio State, which was then ranked fourth by the Associated Press.

Further solidifying USC and Texas as the top two teams, their competition in the Pac-10 and Big 12, respectively, gives little indication of testing them down the road.

Oklahoma's five-game winning streak against Texas is jeopardized in light of dismal losses to Texas Christian and UCLA, not to mention a dismal win over Tulsa. Four other Pac-10 teams join USC in the USA Today top 25. But when scribes dream up chinks in USC's armor based on a 45-13 road win against 24th-ranked Oregon, you know the power of the imagination is alive and well.

Barring a remarkable upset in the next three months, we already know it's going to be USC and Texas for the mythical title on Jan. 4 at the Rose Bowl, and we already knew that two weeks ago. Be assured, USC and Texas will take everyone's best shot down the line, but who's going to beat them?

Around Austin, the question is almost too dangerous to ask. It tempts fate.

Brown’s eight years in Austin have revived Texas football while frustrating Longhorns fans to no end. Despite his incredible track record — 46-8 in the last five years and 73-19 in total — half the season is anti-climax because the annual loss to Oklahoma takes the Horns out of the national championship hunt.

And when they climb back into the top five, someone catches them late, be it Colorado in 2001, Texas Tech in 2002 or Washington State in 2003.

By losing only to the Sooners last year, Texas made remarkable progress. Since last year’s loss to Oklahoma, the Horns have won ten straight, six of those against ranked teams. But nerves continue to fray. After being so close and yet so far for so many years, it’s hard to believe Texas is so close to playing for the national title. It almost seems so far.

The road ahead for Texas is almost too easy. Brown may never come to this point of the season with a better chance to win a national championship.

The Big 12 usually won’t allow it. This year, however, Texas Tech, ranked 13th by USA Today, is the only ranked team remaining on the Longhorns schedule.

Does Texas have the killer instinct?

The tougher road lies on front of USC, which travels to No. 15 Arizona State Saturday and later plays at No. 14 Notre Dame and at No. 11 California before closing the regular season at home against No. 20 UCLA. It remains to be proven that any college football defense is equipped to stop Leinart and USC running back Reggie Bush.

Of the remaining USC games, the most challenging pops up on Nov. 12, when the Trojans travel to Berkeley. California ranks tenth nationally on offense (490.5 yards per game) and 28th on defense (309.25 ypg). USC ranks 42nd on defense (341.67 ypg) and second on offense (615.67 ypg).

The only more prolific offense in college football belongs to Texas Tech (653.67 ypg), which raised stir last week with speculation it could have scored 100 against Division I-AA doormat Indiana State. Though Texas Tech coach Mike Leach has won praise for his explosive passing game, he can equally be chastised for scheduling Florida International, Sam Houston State and Indiana State as his non-conference opposition. The Raiders could drop from the rankings as soon as they take on someone their own size.

Or, the Red Raiders could be the team that throws Texas out of the national title hunt. But every remaining game is a trap for the Longhorns, who will line up with so much to gain and so much to lose against ordinary opposition. The Baylor game becomes the moral equivalent of Oklahoma.

The season remaining might bore the rest of us. Mack Brown has to hope it will. But it won’t bore Brown and the Texas fans. When it ends, Texas fans are liable to either hold Brown in the highest esteem or hang him high in effigy.