Revenge is a dish best served cold. In college football, it is pretty much the only way the dish can be served, unless somehow you get to play the team that beat you in a conference championship game, like the Ohio State Buckeyes did against oh, yea, the Big Ten doesnt have a conference title game. I digress.

Cold does not even begin to describe the look on University of Texas quarterback Colt McCoys face last year as he stood on the sideline watching his teams national title hopes circle the drain in Lubbock last year against the Texas Tech Red Raiders.

He was a statue. He was completely frozen. And one knows, despite saying all the right things since that game, the image of watching Michael Crabtree shake lose a Texas defender and waltz into the end zone in the Red Raiders shocking victory over the Horns last year.

Put it in the past, McCoy said. Ive never been a revenge-type guy.

Uh huh.

A loss that knocked the Horns out of the Big 12 title game, a spot taken by the Sooners, whom the Horns beat, and kept them from playing for another crystal football, and McCoy just put it behind him. Even if we were to believe the baby-faced QB, you better believe Longhorn nation has not moved on quite yet.

That day in Red Raider land, it wasnt just the defense that played at a fevered pitch, the fans were out for blood and arguably helped contribute to the win.

While Texas fans have become a bit spoiled with wins over anyone not named Oklahoma during the Mack Brown era, you can expect them to pack their newly renovated stadium to over 100,000 on Saturday night for what might be one of the biggest blood-letting revenges since the Texans remembered the Alamo.

While Texas fans rub their hands together in anticipation of another crack at Mike Leach and his Red Raiders, Leach, as is his wont, has been aloof leading up to the game, suggesting the Longhorns may already be looking down the road to ranked Oklahoma and Oklahoma State.

I imagine were probably another game to them, Leach said.

Dont bet on it, coach. But maybe the head pirate is just playing coy, hoping the karma of Saturday being National Talk Like a Pirate Day will put his team over the top.

Leach could use a little pirate karma, because his team does not look like the excitable bunch that took down Goliath last fall.

While Leach has proven that his system can make a college hero out of any quarterback who dons a Red Raider jersey (and if you dont think it produces system quarterbacks, go ask the much heralded Graham Harrell, if you can find him up in Canada), it takes time for a quarterback to feel comfortable in that system. So, a mid-September game against the best defense they will face all season does probably not benefit the Raiders.

Their new quarterback, junior Taylor Potts, is more physically imposing than any quarterback to play for Leach, and by the time he leaves in two years, he may have amassed some eye-popping numbers. The number that should be of concern now, however, is three. Thats the number of times Potts threw the ball to the Rice Owls last week in a victory that started out a little sluggish.

If Potts turns the ball over more than once, his team may not have a chance against Texas.

While McCoy is running less and always looks for his best friend Jordan Shipley, the Longhorns actually appear ready to run the ball more this year than in the past. With a ball control offense that utilizes three different running backs eating clock, if the Red Raiders get sloppy at all, it could be a very long night.

And with a crowd hell bent on making sure the Horns Remember Lubbock, Potts, making his first ever road start, will be under enormous pressure from a defense and 100,000 faithful who will be in his head from the opening snap.