Two weeks ago when the Longhorns and Razorbacks were originally scheduled to meet, Texas was coming off of a dominant victory over a weak non-conference opponent, your retirement investments appeared to be in good shape, and Arkansas was undefeated, looking to establish itself as a darkhorse in the loaded Southeastern Conference.

How things have changed.

The Horns are still undefeated, but Arkansas is now coming off of a 49-14 loss to No. 9 Alabama in a game that exposed the Razorbacks’ porous run defense and sloppy offensive execution. Despite the weaknesses that Arkansas has displayed over the last two weeks, however, Texas coach Mack Brown knows better than to underestimate a team with a chip on its shoulder.

“Athletes have a tremendous amount of pride, and I would have rather have seen Arkansas win last week than get beat”, Brown told reporters Wednesday.

Regardless of how the Razorbacks have spent their extra two weeks preparing for Texas, the Longhorns have their own issues to resolve as the Big 12 portion of the schedule approaches. After giving up their bye-week at the behest of Hurricane Ike, Colt McCoy and Co. are now faced with handling the Razorbacks in addition to a particularly daunting stretch of schedule that features games at Colorado, OU, and back home against Missouri on October 18.

Due to the condensed schedule, the Horns are looking to replace recently injured tight end Blaine Irby on the fly, either by finding a replacement at that position or experimenting with more four- and five-wide receiver sets that rely more heavily on the teams’ younger receivers.

Texas coaches have revealed little about how they plan to handle the vacancy at tight end. After the severity of Irby’s injury (dislocated knee) was confirmed Monday, Brown responded with more questions than answers as to how the team plans to move forward. “Blaine gave us the same things that David Thomas and Jermichael Finley gave us. Right now, we don't have another guy that can do that. So do we move another guy to that position? Do we work some wide receivers inside in certain cases for certain plays? All of that's what we're discussing”, he said.

The team has been working with backup tight ends Peter Ullman and Ian Harris in practice this week, but in the meantime the team is likely to rely on more proven players to make up for Irby’s production on offense.

Defensively, Brown and defensive coordinator Will Muschamp are choosing to view the same bloated stats against the pass in a new light. As described in this article over at the Statesman, the Texas staff is overlooking its poor national ranking against the pass and opting to focus on the bend-but-seldom-break approach to defense.

This week Brown addressed the issue with regard to the strength of the passing attacks the team will face as it moves into the conference portion of its schedule:

"People are going to throw the ball and get yards. A 300-yard passing game is nothing anymore, and that's what we're seeing."

NOTES:

• At halftime on Saturday Texas will retire the numbers of former Longhorn greats Tommy Nobis and Bobby Layne. Nobis wore No. 60 and Layne wore No. 22.


• Kickoff is scheduled for 2:30 p.m. and the game will be broadcast on ABC.


• The game will be shown at the Austin City Limits Music Festival at the AT&T Digital Oasis and the Rock Island Hideaway.