Texas 49 Texas A&M 39

Exhale.

What was not surprising on Thursday night:  Colt McCoy cementing his Heisman candidacy, accounting for 479 total yards, including a 65 yard TD run that will be shown about 100 times during Heisman discussions in the next week.

What was surprising on Thursday night: The defense.  What the *$#@ was that?

It appears as though the Longhorns were content with sitting back in zone and letting Jerrod Johnson beat them, and he almost did.  I don't know the exact numbers, but the Longhorns did little blitzing, sending four rushers for the majority of the game, and three a lot of times. 

I guess I would be more discouraged if I thought the players played poorly on Thursday night, but with the exception of the first touchdown, I thought that the defense did what they were asked to do by the coaches and did it about as well as they could.  Tackling wasn't always great, and of course there were some blown coverages, but I don't think as a whole our defense was "exposed" as a fraud...the coaches just tried a gameplan that failed miserably and didn't feel the need to change it up at any time during the game.

The offense was outstanding, as lost in the hubbub of McCoy's night and the defense falling apart was the rushing effort of Tre Newton, who ran for 109 yards on 16 carries and a touchdown.  Hopefully he has locked down what has been a tumultuous position for the Horns this year.

You never know, the game might have been good for the Horns, as they were hit in the mouth and fought back with all they could, and Coach Muschamp now has a reason to get mad at his defense and make them work.  Don't let the national media fool you with the talk of a team that gives up 39 doesn't belong in the national title game, Oklahoma gave up 41 to Oklahoma State on this weekend last year and USC gave up 42 to Fresno State late in the year in 2005, and the media still loved those teams.

They just hate Texas, and well, that's their problem.

We'll be back on Wednesday with a look at the Texas/Nebraska match-up in Arlington, Florida/Alabama in Atlanta and much, much more.