Welcome to the fifth annual 2017 Longhorn Football Prospectus: Thinking Texas Football. This book is a Texas football preview, a Big 12 season companion and reference guide, and a resource for the entire football season.
We started writing these guides because we believe they fill an important, underserved niche in the market. Like many passionate football fans reading regional or national publications, we realized that we knew more about our team and conference than the “experts.” And most of their previews might better be termed “historicals” - as they are written in April for June publication. We targeted an early July release to balance the inclusion of recent developments like transfers, injuries and offseason intelligence with the desire to provide football sustenance during the long, hot summer.
Thinking Texas Football, in deference to its name, is written for an intelligent football layperson. We won’t insult you by writing down to the lowest common denominator nor will we try to overawe you with technical babble. The internet has several fantastic resources - public and pay - but they (where we write included) serve a reactive news cycle and rarely have the chance to develop deeper themes. And heading into a season that we think should be the start of something truly special in Longhorn history, there’s no better time for a deep dive.
Our best ambition is to provide you with different tools - while plainly communicating an awareness of our own biases and blind spots - so that we can drive a conversation that mutually enriches our shared passion.
If you like it, tell a friend. If you really like it, buy several and send it to all of your friends. We hope they’ll appreciate it as much as we do.
Hook ‘em!
- Paul, Jason & Scott
