A 3-4 record in year one at Texas isn't what most fans were expecting at this point of the season when they hired Tom Herman away from Houston to resurrect the Longhorn program.
However, in three of those four most recent losses are signs of promise. There's a three point loss to USC in Week three, followed by two good wins against Iowa State and Kansas State before dropping two games to Oklahoma and Oklahoma State, respectively, by a total of 8 points.
Asked about the Longhorns facing adversity, particularly on offense where he admits they lack some leadership, Herman shared some interesting insight on how he and his staff are dealing with adversity during the season.
"We've got a lot of inexperienced guys, that right now the human reaction when faced with adversity is to try harder, and a lot of times that's not the right thing to do. It's not to try harder, it's to try smarter. That's where we've got to take some deep breaths, relax, trust our training, stick your foot in the ground, and don't worry about anything else."
Herman goes on to share how the offensive side of the ball can learn from the defensive side, pointing out that first game of the year against Maryland when they got gashed for 51 points, to then come back and win 56-0 against San Jose State the next week, and put together a number of solid defensive performances since then. Herman admits that it's harder to do that on the offensive side of things before sharing the Navy Seal quote that they've come to live by at Texas.
"We live by the Navy Seal quote that, 'In times of adversity you don't rise to the occasion, you fall to the level of your training.' So the only thing that we know how to do when faced with adversity, and when we handle it poorly, is to go train ourselves better. Because that's what you see in times of adversity is what you are training."
Hear more from Herman below.
https://youtu.be/8s049Pmxtmo?t=471