With upset bids from Oklahoma, Missouri and Oklahoma State emphatically quashed over the last three weeks and championship runs by fellow powerhouses like USC and Ohio State out of the question, all that's standing between Texas and the BCS title game in the Rose Bowl is holding court over its last five games. For the record, those games are against Central Florida, Baylor, Kansas, Texas A&M (combined record against teams from "Big Six" conferences: 5-12) and the annual patsy from the North Division in the Big 12 Championship, which hasn't come within two touchdowns of the South champ since 2003 and looks weaker than ever this year. The path to Pasadena is so clear, the hometown Austin American-Statesman is already offering advice for Longhorn fans more concerned with securing a seat than cursing their team with premature hubris:

"We've seen a jump in bookings to Los Angeles and Burbank after every Texas win," Southwest spokeswoman Ashley Rogers said. "The biggest was after the Oklahoma win."
[...]
Jon Berry, who works at Square 1 Bank downtown, already has his plane tickets to California and a welcome to stay with friends in Los Angeles.

Berry also has reserved the right to buy a game ticket at the $275 face value using the official Pasadena Tournament of Roses Web site. He paid $90 for that right, before the season began. As of Thursday, reservations to buy end zone seats were going for $520 and up.

The last sentence of the article -- "The Longhorns take on the University of Central Florida at 11 a.m. Saturday at Royal-Memorial Stadium" -- plays almost like a punch line in its irrelevance. Who are we kidding with this Central Florida/Baylor/Kansas charade? By any realistic standard, Texas is playing against itself from here on.

And it should be noted that the 'Horns have consistently lost that battle -- three years in a row, Texas has entered November with long winning streaks and major goals intact, and blown games as a significant favorite down the stretch all three years. In 2006, UT rebounded from an early loss to No. 1 Ohio State to beat Oklahoma and was steaming toward a national title shot before being suddenly upended at Kansas State, then knocked from the Big 12 Championship game by Texas A&M in the regular season finale, relegating the Longhorns to the Alamo Bowl instead; in 2007, they blew a five-game win streak and a BCS shot with another stunning loss to A&M in Dennis Franchione's last game with the Aggies. Last year, of course, riding high at No. 1 after putting away the Oklahoma-Missouri-Oklahoma State trifecta in October, UT was done in at the last second by Texas Tech, and never recovered in the polls as Oklahoma hit the gas over the last four weeks. In fact, if there's a theme to Colt McCoy's otherwise brilliant tenure as the Longhorn quarterback to date, certainly the "inexplicable November choke" has replaced "Vince Young's shadow."

Not that this team's pending ascension to the title game isn't worth putting a few hundred bucks on, if you're dead set on accompanying it out: The defense, last year's Achilles heel, has added a real throat-stomping streak that, along with the still-dominant offense and consistently dangerous return game, has made Texas both the highest-scoring team in the country and the one with the widest average margin of victory at 28.2 points per game. All of which makes Texas nearly identical to last year's championship outfit from Florida (though not this year's much less explosive edition of the Gators) and likely two-touchdown favorites, minimum, in all of their remaining games. These 'Horns haven't given any indication that they're the self-destructive type.

Still, there's going to be local product Todd Reesing putting up 40-plus passing when Kansas comes back to his hometown in two weeks, and suddenly rejuvenated Texas A&M gunning for (probably) its eight victory and a winning conference record in College Station on a short turnaround on Thanksgiving night. Then the Big 12 Championship, where the Longhorns blew a championship shot back in 2001. All menial tasks en route to the promised land, of course, but if they get too far ahead of themselves, also the stuff nightmares are made of.