Texas vs Wyoming

Longhorns tangle with Cowboys: Longhorn Game Day is upon us

Photo courtesy of Texas Longhorns
Wyoming quarterback Brett Smith
Longhorns face off against the Cowboys on Sept. 1 at 7 p.m.

"Many are picking them to win their league. They also have gone to two bowl [games] in the last three years for the first time since 1988 and 1990. The Cowboys were ranked 10th nationally, forcing 31 turnovers, and they were ninth in turnover margin.

"That's an area we have really been talking about for the last couple years that we need to continue to improve. So it should be a great test with them coming in, forcing so many turnovers and taking care of the football," said Texas Head Coach Mack Brown

Texas vs. Wyoming just sounds cool. Longhorns vs. Cowboys? The battle of the old west.

Yeah, Wyoming was bad for a long time, but these last few years have been good to the Cowboys. Now entering his fourth year as head coach, Dave Christianson is close to delivering Wyoming fans a Mountain West Conference Championship. It would be their first championship since 1993. It doesn't hurt that TCU is no longer in that conference, but nevertheless the Cowboys can turn the tide. They've won two bowl games in the last three years and finished 8-5 last year; they hadn't won eight games in a season since 1998.

Royal-Memorial Stadium seats nearly as many fans during one game (100,000+) as Wyoming seats in a whole season (130,000 last season).

Texas, well, that's another story. Had Texas gone 8-5 last season fans would be... oh wait... had they not won the Holiday Bowl they would have — yikes. But that's flawed thinking; this game will be fun to watch and perhaps competitive for awhile and Wyoming will lose tomorrow.

The truth is, the Cowboys just can't compete with the speed, strength and size of the Longhorns. Texas not only enjoys an edge in size and speed, they also enjoy a huge home field advantage. One of the most fun things to see during home games at Royal-Memorial Stadium is the opposing team trotting out of the locker room on the north side of the field while 100,000 Longhorn faithful sing "Texas Fight."

On Saturday, watch the boys in brown as they trot out. Royal-Memorial Stadium seats nearly as many fans during one game (100,000+) as Wyoming seats in a whole season (130,000 last season). In fact many of Texas high school stadiums are as large as Wyoming's 30,000 seat War Memorial Stadium. Talk about intimidating.

"Their head coach [Dave Christianson] knows us very well from his Missouri days. So he'll have an idea of how to handle this environment when they come in. They have got an older football team, so that's a factor too," said Brown. They will start seven seniors on defense and three on the offensive line.

Wyoming matches up well for Texas.

Their star player is sophomore quarterback Brett Smith. Smith won the 2011 Mountain West Freshman Player of the Year last season scoring over 30 touchdowns and throwing for 2,600 yards. He's really good. He can run outside of the pocket, has a strong arm and captains a complicated offense. Here's what defensive coordinator Manny Diaz had to say about the Cowboy offense:

We are going against an offense that's a rule of exception. They are going to line up in empty formations. They are going to line up in unbalanced formations. They are going to line up in tackle-over formations.

Everything to make you, when you say, “Hey, let's go, you know, fire up, knock 'em back,” and all then of a sudden, you have to get your protractor out there and start doing calculations on where they are all at. That's by design. That's what they do. They have very creative offensive coaches.

The problem? Who Smith is throwing to, and who is running alongside him. (Smith led the team in rushing last season, too.)

One Cowboy strength is turnover ratio. Wyoming does not give up the ball easily and they had 31 takeaways last year, good for 10th in the country.

On the defensive side there are issues for sure. The Cowboy defense got killed on the ground, giving up huge chunks of yards to average teams. That stat gets mouths watering for the Texas offense. This will be Longhorn Nation's first look at Johnathan Gray, the all-everything running back and national high school player of the year.

Texas may have the best stable of running backs in the country. Either Joe Bergeron or last year's leading rusher Malcolm Brown will start, but Gray will get time. Look for Gray to get a lot of touches in the fourth quarter and look for Texas to run the ball 50 times Saturday.

Brown and co-offensive coordinator Bryan Harsin made no secret of how close the race for starting quarterback was and they will be grading.

This game is perfect for the Horns. Wyoming will be competitive — the team can play. Texas needs an opportunity to line up against more than a team they can beat. They need a team like Wyoming that can give the coaches a good look at their quarterbacks and offensive line.

David Ash will start, but my bet is Case McCoy will see significant time. This is in all respects an additional week of try-outs for those two. Brown and co-offensive coordinator Bryan Harsin made no secret of how close the race for starting quarterback was and they will be grading. Further, the offensive line remains a question. That squad needs to push Wyoming around, and frankly, anything less than 250 yards rushing or any sack of the quarterback will have fans and coaches fuming.

For the Texas defense, can you say shutout? You know that's what Diaz and Brown have in mind. Unless Wyoming scores against the second and third-teamers, a shutout is a good possibility. "We want to dominate," challenged Brown. "[Wyoming] is a good offensive football team. They have a good quarterback, and he's experienced. It will be fun to see how our defense can handle it."

What to Watch

Texas will win, stop worrying about that. If you gamble, worry about the line; it's at 28.5.

Leadership. Game day is the one time fans get to see how the players react to each other. Mack Brown has stressed the need for strong player leadership on this team. How will the veterans react when assignments are missed and plays are blown?

Run the ball often and get those great running backs some reps. The running game needs to anchor this offense. Can Malcolm Brown start with a 100 yard game?

Who throws the ball with more authority, Ash or McCoy? And who makes better decisions in the pocket?

How dominant will the defense be? Will we start the season with a shut out?

What's New

The Longhorns are initiating new tradition this year, the "Stadium Stampede." Let Mack Brown describe it.

Smokey the Cannon will be shot at 4:30 p.m. Our team will be pulling up around 5 p.m. up at the corner of 23rd and Robert Dedman Drive — that's just west of the LBJ fountain. So we want all the fans together at that point. The Texas Cheerleaders will be there. The Longhorn Band will be there.

Our players will pull up and they will get out of the bus. Instead of walking straight into the stadium they will walk down the hill, hopefully to a lot of fans, and they will walk through the Tom and Cinda Hicks [North Gate] at the north end of the stadium and go across the field to get ready to go. Players actually rehearsed that on Thursday night at our game scrimmage. They were very, very excited about the change, but we would like to have a great crowd there.

And of course, there's a new Jumbotron video leading the players onto the field, called "It's a New day." About 99,000 fans in the stadium Saturday night certainly hope so.

Texas Longhorns vs. Wyoming Cowboys

Time: 7 p.m. - Darrell K. Royal — Texas Memorial Stadium
Television: The Longhorn Network
Radio: KVET-FM 98.1 / KVET-AM 1300
Honored: Legendary Head Coach Darrell K. Royal and wife Edith will be honored before the game, walking out on the field for the coin toss. That is a not-to-be-missed moment for any Longhorn fan.

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Grande Communications and The Longhorn Network will also showcase a public viewing of the game at Republic Square Park (400 Guadalupe Street) that starts at 6 p.m.

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Hotty Toddy!

Tailgating the southern way: A taste of game day at The Grove at Ole Miss

Standard Ole Miss Grove attire
A sample spread
Meredith Rainey
Hotty Toddy!
Meredith Rainey
It’s game time!
Meredith Rainey
Welcome to The Grove!
Meredith Rainey
Fans enter Vaught-Hemingway Stadium
Meredith Rainey
The square in Oxford
Meredith Rainey

Oxford Mississippi’s official population is just over 19,000. But come Saturdays in the fall, what some might affectionately call a sleepy college town wakes up with a buzz of excitement and activity as the population explodes to more than triple, with college football fans eager to cheer on their Ole Miss Rebels. They prepare to do that in one of the most inviting and unique tailgating spots in the country.

“The Grove is unlike any other place on earth, especially [during] big games such as Texas vs. Ole Miss. The feeling and experience are indescribable,” Ole Miss senior Margaret Anderson says. The Grove is a place Longhorns fans have been excited to go since the announcement UT would face Ole Miss in a series of games starting in 2012. The first of those games happens this Saturday in Oxford.

The closer you get to Ole Miss, the greener the grass and the taller the trees. The campus of The University of Mississippi, which welcomed its first class in 1848, has been ranked by many publications as one of the most beautiful college campuses in the country.

Its roads and walkways are lined with vibrant oak, elm, magnolia and pine trees. Its old stone and brick buildings are accented with classic details quintessential of a traditional southern university. And on Saturdays every fall, the largest green space on campus, known as The Grove, is dotted with hundreds of red, white and blue tents and young adults dressed to the nines, ready for a good time.

“It's the biggest and most well dressed party in the USA that happens six times a year,” Ole Miss junior and Attorney General of the Student Body Matthew Kiefer says.

Inside the 10-acre Grove, you’ll be greeted by unparalleled southern hospitality and enjoy some of the best food and fixin's you'll find at any college tailgating. And don't worry if you don't know anyone. If you're friendly, you will have dozens of people calling you by your first name in no time and you will be satisfied with a tummy full of homemade pimento cheese, fried chicken, deviled eggs and decadent finger sandwiches.

“There's a sense of hospitality that you can only experience when walking through the brick arch of the Walk of Champions. We welcome and offer shelter and refreshments to both opponent and friend and win or lose, there's always a party,” explains Ole Miss Student Body Vice President Emmalee Rainey.

Besides the great food and the lush setting, something else that makes The Grove unique is the dress code. While you can wear whatever you want, you will find students dressed in their Sunday best or something you might see at a cocktail party. You'll see girls in dressy sun dresses or knee length evening gowns and heels, boys in khakis and long-sleeved button downs, ties and perhaps seersucker blazers. The formal game day dress adds to the excitement, giving it a sense of being even more of a special occasion than it already is.

Matthew Kiefer describes the uniqueness of The Grove, “It’s the feeling of 30,000 people walking around in their Easter best, where a ‘hello’ and a ‘y'all’ can make acquaintances into friends, and friends into family.”

The tents are also more formal than what you might see in the parking lots around Darrell K. Royal Texas Memorial Stadium on game day. Many have chandeliers, living room lamps, flower arrangements and sterling silver platters and cutlery, making it feel more like a backyard party than tailgating. In fact, to call it tailgating is both inadequate and inaccurate, as vehicles aren’t allowed in The Grove.

Between the delicious food and friendly faces, you can spend hours just wandering between the tents catching up with old friends, making new ones and sharing your thoughts on what you think might be in store for the Ole Miss Rebels when that first whistle blows.

University of Texas Longhorns fans were able to scoop up about four thousand tickets to this Saturday’s game at Vaught-Hemingway Stadium in Oxford, but thousands more UT fans are expected to stampede into the Grove to get a taste of a different type of tailgating. Regardless of who wins, Longhorns fans will undoubtedly be charmed by the small Mississippi city home to one of the most beautiful college campuses and best tailgating in the country. Hotty Toddy!

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In the interest of full disclosure, Emmalee Rainey who is quoted in this article is my stepdaughter.

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