Texas Longhorns live the struggle

At 4-4, the Texas Longhorns football team is struggling, to put it mildly, as it travels to Kansas State today. Here's my take over at The Austin Chronicle.

Garrett Gilbert, Colt McCoy both lose while learning

What does the rest of the season hold for the Texas Longhorns after three football losses that didn't have to happen? Read my latest Austin Chronicle blog post.

Texas Longhorns slide toward home

Texas learns to coach and beats up on the unsuspecting Nebraska Cornhuskers to begin their season's second stanza. Can they pull it off again or is a stumble awaiting? I sort it out in my UT blog for The Austin Chronicle.

Common sense sez Nebraska whoops Texas; history whispers different tune

My latest sports blog at The Austin Chronicle as the Texas Longhorns prepare to travel into hostile Nebraska Cornhuskers' territory.

NEWS FLASH: Texas Longhorns won't lose a football game this weekend

Of course, that's because they're not playing. Read more in my UT football blog for The Austin Chronicle.

Bob Stoops is on line one!

The following message was left on my 1980's-era answering machine:

Joe! How they hanging, my scribbling bubba? Coach Bob Stoops here, if you want to be all formal. Just wanted to touch base before the big hoedown, my friend. You know I love the Texas State Fair and all that fried crap. Have you seen my gut lately? The wife is starting to complain.

I bet they’re complaining in Austin, too. Those surfers from UCLA pulled a number on the fellas in Burnt Orange again. I haven’t seen anybody do that since, well, me!

(read the rest on my Texas Longhorns football blog for The Austin Chronicle.

In search of the elusive Mike Leach

My journey into the Heart of Dryness in search of defrocked Texas Tech Coach Mike Leach leads me to Cadillac Ranch and the mutterings of a seeming madman. The horror! The horror!

Read my University of Texas football blog in The Austin Chronicle.

Last word on No. 2 Texas Longhorns improbable season

One last take on the Texas football season and its future with Garrett Gilbert: My Austin Chronicle sports blog.

Why Texas will beat Alabama for the BCS title

My argument for why Texas will beat Alabama at the Rose Bowl for the college football title starts with the D. See my Texas Longhorns blog at The Austin Chronicle.

Luck and the literature of football

My take on the Texas Longhorns football team's win over Nebraska in the Big 12 title game (it was ugly) can be seen at the Austin Chronicle's sports blog.

Colt McCoy's Heisman hopes await in Nebraska

A preview of the Big 12 title game this Saturday in my Austin Chronicle blog. Could Colt McCoy win the game and lose the Heisman race?

Zen and the art of Texas Longhorn football

My latest University of Texas football blog for The Austin Chronicle knows for sure that it's replaceable. So does fourth-string quarterback Trevor Walker.

Texas Longhorns' next 2 opponents: UTEP and inertia

Check out my latest in The Austin Chronicle on the University of Texas Longhorns football team. Did Sergio Kindle's swamping of Texas Tech QB Taylor Potts change everything?

For those too busy to read the blog (or with extreme ADD), here it is a Wordle.

Sam Bradford and Fred Akers?

The unlikely duo are on my mind as the University of Texas Longhorns enter the second week of a dream football season. See my Austin Chronicle blog here.

Football, poetry and me

A view from the podium.


Larry Thomas reads.

It's been an interesting week. Monday I went to my first Mack Brown press conference as The Austin Chronicle continued in its quest to turn me into a sports writer, specifically on the University of Texas Longhorn football beat. It resulted in two pieces that you can see here.


Friday, poet Joe Hoppe, prose writer Maxine Beach, who is also the new head of the Austin Community College Creative Writing Department, and I got up early to drive to Granbury. After biscuits and gravy at a local diner, we read at Langdon Weekend, an event sponsored by Tarleton State University. In the photo above you can see my view out on the audience with a copy of my novel Evacuation Plan in the foreground.

Later we listened to a reading by Texas' new poet laureate Larry Thomas at a private residence overlooking the local lake.

On the way back we stopped in Dublin for some of that real-sugar Dr Pepper minus the period.