There is no satisfaction at 5-2 for the Texas Longhorns or their fans. If you listened to the fans sitting in the stands or in the parking lot or on the radio after the game, they sure didn't sound like they were celebrating a win. They sounded like they were mourning a loss.

Still, the Texas Longhorn offense managed to get the ball last on a night when the last team to have the ball would win. And they beat Baylor, a team that stood toe to toe with them — on both offense and defense — by a score of 56-50.

On offense, this was a circus: two good football teams moving the ball up and down the field, giving the fans whiplash.

On defense, this was embarrassing. Texas and Baylor ran up almost 1,200 yards of offense and 106 points. The Texas defense gave up more than 250 yards rushing — again, while holding Baylor's quarterback, Nick Florence, to under 300 yards passing, which is a victory of sorts.

The Texas defense is so bad that the words "worst ever" are getting thrown around a lot. Luckily for the Longhorns, on Saturday their "worst ever" was just good enough.

The Texas offense found its stride. Longhorn Daje Johnson took a hand-off on the first play of the game and ran 84 yards to put Texas out front. It was the kind of fast start the Horns needed badly to overcome the "disaster in Dallas."

No one will mistake these Longhorns for a good team, but going 2-2 during the most difficult stretch of the season — beating Oklahoma State and Baylor, nearly (should have) beating West Virginia — is not bad for this underachieving football team.

Moving forward
Texas can still end up 9-3 (I'm not counting on a win against a top-ranked K-State to end the season) or 6-6. Who knows? With the exception of a very bad Kansas team coming to Austin next week (11 am kickoff), all of the other games on Texas' schedule will be tough.

Texas Tech destroyed West Virginia. Iowa State beat TCU and Iowa and nearly beat K-State. TCU hammered Baylor and took Tech to three overtimes. Kansas State looks like a top 5 team.

Texas is winning on the thinnest of margins. A blown play here, a turnover there, and the Longhorns could find themselves staring up at the wrong side of the scoreboard.

Accountability
It's time for defensive coordinator Manny Diaz to begin living up to his hype. He has shown no ability to make mid-season adjustments to this embarrassing "worst ever" defense, and it's time for Mack Brown to begin holding his defensive coaching staff accountable for the disaster. Maybe that means calling them out; maybe it just means he stops apologizing for them. But it is time to force the issue.

"The only thing we're evaluating now is wins," Brown said in response to a question about the Longhorns defense. "Really and honestly. And it's not me being a smart aleck. We're trying to win games. Stats are out the window. The positive was we forced a couple of field goals, forced a couple of punts. Had two turnovers. That's the positive."

The negative was pretty obvious to anyone watching the game.

The Longhorn offense is good enough to win the rest of its games. Whether that happens or not lies directly on the shoulders of Manny Diaz and Mack Brown.