Football season is upon us, and the Football on the 40 crew could not be more excited!
In one of our recent episodes we each shared our picks for every game this season. Here’s a summary of our predictions:
Overall, we have a positive outlook for this season with Kevin and Bowen picking 8-4 regular seasons and Jake and Andrew picking the Longhorns at 9-3 in the regular season. Time will tell but we’re hoping this positivity is proven true with a huge win against Louisiana-Monroe (ULM) this Saturday in Austin.
The Longhorns are entering week 1 against ULM favored by over 5 touchdowns with the line at Texas – 37.5 (as of Wednesday August 31st). With Quinn Ewers under center as QB1 and Bijan Robinson poised for a run as a 2022 Heisman finalist, we will all be on the edge of our seats this Saturday at 7pm hoping and praying that our picks for a win in week 1 are proven true.
Leading up to the ULM game, Texas head coach Sarkisian gave some insight into how the team is feeling. “There’s obviously a lot of excitement in the air. I felt it today during meetings and in practice. The volume you know gets turned up as the season rolls around and the intensity gets turned up, the attention to detail and all those things,” Sarkisian said.
Sarkisian continued by saying the Longhorns are “looking forward to the moment. We only get twelve of these chances a season so we’re looking to make the most of it.” It would not come as a surprise if the Longhorns make the most of ULM and roll into week 2 with a 1-0 record.
It was a disappointing and humbling moment when each of us shared expectations of a loss in week 2 when Alabama comes to Austin. Bowen summarized this pick by saying, “at first, I did naively mark this one as a win, but as I went through the whole body of the season it felt like a win against Bama and a 9-3 season was a little too optimistic.”
Kevin continued on the topic of Alabama game expectations by recalling a similar 2019 matchup before Big 12 Conference play against LSU. “Despite losing to LSU that season we felt pretty good about how we stacked up against the eventual 2020 national champions.” We all agreed that playing a perennial champion in Alabama will be a great barometer to see how the Longhorn program stacks up against the country’s best teams.
In week 4 of this season against Texas Tech, Andrew surprisingly picked a loss for the Longhorns’ first away game in Lubbock. Andrew summarized his thinking by stating, “well, I don’t like Tech, but it’s hard to play in Lubbock and they have a new head coach so we don’t know what style of offense and defense they will be playing. Lastly, Sark is not very good on the road, at least at Texas so far.”
The pinnacle of the Texas football regular season is expected to be our October matchup against Oklahoma. Despite Oklahoma’s preseason top 10 AP poll ranking, all of us except for Bowen picked a win for the Longhorns in the matchup at the Cotton Bowl! Andrew added, “I just think OU is overrated this year. They lost a lot of great talent and they lost a great coach in Lincoln Riley. You know, Vennables might be a great coach, we don’t know, we’ll see. I think he [Vennables] will have to be the same level of coach as Lincoln Riley was to beat us this year. I feel like we’ll win.”
For Texas football fans, there are always expectations and there is always reality. We welcome you to listen-in on Football on the 40 to follow our journey coping with reality as the season progresses!
Please beat Louisiana-Monroe… Please…
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Football on the 40 is a weekly Texas Football podcast hosted by several deeply passionate Longhorn football fans and longtime friends Kevin Mathis, Jake Robinson, Andrew Harris, and Bowen Cai. Football on the 40 profiles the highs and lows of the Texas fan experience and dives deep into upcoming Texas games, weekly betting odds, and picks across college football. New episodes are posted every Thursday during the college football season on Spotify and Apple Podcasts. Football on the 40 is produced by Hamilton Leiser.
