Texas Football: Was this the last straw for Tom Herman?

The Texas football program took a step back on Nov. 27, with head coach Tom Herman seeing his team fall short in agonizing fashion to Iowa State.

The result that no one was looking for out of fourth-year Texas football head coach Tom Herman arrived in dramatic fashion at the last second again on Black Friday against the No. 13 ranked Iowa State Cyclones. Texas had the opportunity to take hold of their path to the Big 12 Championship Game against Iowa State, but they were not able to take advantage of it.

Herman and the Longhorns came into this game as a slight one-point favorite over Iowa State, and they had momentum on their side with a three-game winning streak following their Nov. 7 home win over the West Virginia Mountaineers. But Texas snapped that winning streak on the afternoon of Nov. 27, with a very difficult three-point loss to the Clones and head coach Matt Campbell.

Just like any loss would do of late for the Longhorns, the hot seat questions for Herman continue to resurface. Since Texas is still having trouble capitalizing on any level of momentum in Big 12 play, and just not having the ability to separate from their opponents at all, the frustration is boiling over with the performance of this team week-over-week.

Texas also came very close in their three-game winning streak to losing two of those games. The West Virginia win came down to one play, and the road upset over the Oklahoma State Cowboys came by a very narrow margin in overtime.

The fact of the matter is that the Longhorns have played in three overtime games this year, and came away victorious in two of them. Their current record of 5-3 (4-3 Big 12) is just a few steps away from swinging by three or four games in either direction.

This result was just more proof that the Longhorns are going to continue to provide a roller coaster ride of success and letdowns on the field, and likely will continue to do so on the recruiting trail, under Herman’s direction. They had this game in control heading into the fourth quarter, but a few costly offensive letdowns and the overall inability to pull away from their opponent came back to bite them again.

The same could be said for the loss to the TCU Horned Frogs, and inconsistencies also resulted in the loss to the Oklahoma Sooners in the Red River Rivalry game back on Oct. 10. It’s easy to see why the frustration is mounting for the Longhorns and their fans.

As it pertains to answering the question of if this is the last straw in fact for Herman, he’s not going to see the door this week. A lot still hinges on how Texas does against the Kansas schools, but the fact that this team is now very likely to miss the Big 12 Championship Game really hurts his future with the program. It might be until the offseason that we know his fate for 2021.

Next up for Herman and the Longhorns is a Dec. 5 road matchup with head coach Chris Klieman and the Kansas State Wildcats. The best that Texas could likely do again this season is eight wins, and even that doesn’t seem probable at this point. Texas and Kansas State are both trending in the wrong direction heading into that game.