Texas Football: McConaughey expects Herman to ‘compete’ for titles

Texas football is in a dire spot this weekend against the Oklahoma State Cowboys. And the expectations from here on out for Tom Herman are clear.

The way that the Texas football program played under the direction of fourth-year head coach Tom Herman at the outset of their matchup against the undefeated and No. 6 ranked Oklahoma State Cowboys on the afternoon of Oct. 31 inspired some confidence early on. Texas needs a win to keep the pressure from potentially becoming insurmountable on Herman coming out of the weekend.

Entering this game with a record of 3-2 (2-2 Big 12), the Longhorns at least had some level of momentum from their win over the Baylor Bears back on Oct. 24 at home by the final score of 27-16. That was the first double-digit win over a Big 12 foe for the Longhorns since the 2019 regular season finale against the Texas Tech Red Raiders.

What Texas needed more than anything was just something to feel good about to cap a rough month of October. There were problems on the field and on the recruiting trail for Herman and the Longhorns of late, including losing a commitment from the nation’s top 2022 high school quarterback prospect and five-star Southlake Carroll pro-style signal caller Quinn Ewers.

Texas also lost a commitment from their first original prospect in the 2022 class, four-star Lancaster wide receiver Phaizon Wilson, earlier this week.

The problems on the recruiting trail stemmed back to the beginning of this month, after Herman lost the commit of the elite four-star Denton-Ryan athlete Billy Bowman Jr. in his 2021 class. Bowman Jr. could very well wind up landing with head coach Lincoln Riley and the rival Oklahoma Sooners.

With all of the turmoil surrounding the Texas program at the moment, the university’s minister of culture Matthew McConaughey gave his take on where the team should be at. And by in large, McConaughey opened up on the bar that should be set for the Longhorns from here on out with Colin Cowherd on his show “The Herd”.

Here’s more on what McConaughey had to say on the matter (dialogue thanks to 247Sports).

"“It’s many different components — look, everyone goes through cycles and we’re going through a cycle of rebuilding right now,” McConaughey said. “What Tom’s done and what we need to continue to do is this alignment of what we expect. You come to Texas you know what’s expected. You compete for championships. That’s the bar. You’re handed the keys to Ferrari, here you go, drive it.”"

The key part of that statement from McConaughey was him saying that he expects Herman and the Longhorns to “compete for championships”. He did put it well and straightforward to Cowherd representing how essentially the entire fan base feels about the results from Herman’s squad so far.

Herman now owns a record of 28-17 over the course of his four years as Texas head coach. Texas can’t make it a normality to register an eight win season. But that is the path that the Longhorns are getting dangerously close to going down under Herman.