Radio sideline reporter Jed Drenning provides periodic commentary on the Mountaineer football program for WVUsports.com. Be sure to check out his "The Signal Caller" podcast and follow him on Twitter @TheSignalCaller.
 
Some questions aren't for meager minds to ponder.
 
Through the years, intellectual titans have contemplated, without resolution, such things as "Why are we here?" and "What is the self?"
 
And, more recently, of course . . .
 
"Is Texas back?"
 
It's an elusive question with no simple answer.
 
I don't know if Texas is "back" (maybe I'm one of those meager minds), but I do know they're playing football at an incredibly high level – and Saturday marks the eighth time the West Virginia football program will face the University of Texas since joining the Big 12 Conference in 2012. Where might this 2019 Horns team stack up against the other renditions of Texas that WVU has tangled with to date? 
 
If last year's 10-4, Sugar Bowl champion was the most complete version West Virginia has faced, this season's edition is showing that the Longhorns are continuing to trend toward a return to greatness under Tom Herman. Detractors, though, might point to deficiencies on defense as the Horns have struggled not just to replace eight starters on that side of the ball but also to overcome key injuries. 
 
Defensive back Josh Thompson had surgery at the end of September to repair a broken foot suffered against Oklahoma State and could miss the remainder of the season. Also injured against the Cowboys were primary cornerback Jalen Green and safety Caden Sterns, the Longhorns leading tackler. Both are expected to be on the shelf for several weeks. Safeties B.J. Foster (hamstring) and DeMarvion Overshown (back) have also been out but could return against West Virginia. If they do get Foster back in time for WVU that could serve as a major boost for Texas. 
 
The No. 1 rated safety in the nation by ESPN coming out of Angleton, Texas, two years ago, Foster has been a versatile chess piece for the Horns. In 15 career games, he's held down posts ranging from the hole player in the Longhorns Two-Deep Hole coverage to a Buck linebacker physical enough to give Texas the flexibility to kick into a four-man front without substituting.  Foster, who sacked LSU quarterback Joe Burrow two times in a span of three plays in the Horns' loss to the Tigers last month, is a dynamic difference maker whose absence has been felt by the Texas defense the last two games. 
 
No matter how you stack it, these Longhorns are wounded animals. The wave of injuries afflicting the Texas secondary, in particular, has likely altered the strategy of a Texas team that entered the season expecting to lean heavily on its embarrassment of riches on the backend. So confident had the Longhorns staff become in the team's substantial depth in the secondary that defensive coordinator Todd Orlando devised a package he called "Cowboy" that specifically targeted spread offenses by putting no fewer than eight defensive backs on the field. The alignment directly contributed to a sack and an interception in the Longhorns' 45-14 opening day win over Louisiana Tech.  
 
"The guys that traditionally play in space could be in the box, so they aren't playing at nickel, they're playing defensive end in an extreme case," Texas quarterback Sam Ehlinger explained to The Dallas Morning News after facing the package in August camp. 
 
With an abundance of playmakers on the backend, the "Cowboy" package spawned as a result of Orlando's efforts to get his best 11 defenders on the field. Logic might dictate, however, that the package's role could be limited until the Longhorns heal up enough to get back in the mix that surplus of DBs who inspired it. 
 
Despite the rash of injuries that have been a factor in Texas ranking last in the Big 12 in total defense (437 yards/game) through September, the Horns are yielding 25.5 points per contest, a tick better than the 25.9 allowed last season. By the time the final gun sounded in the Longhorns' win over Oklahoma State, the patchwork Texas defensive lineup was strewn together like a popcorn necklace. But somehow Orlando's guys had banded together to limit dynamo wide receiver Tylan Wallace to no scores on just five catches while holding Chuba Hubbard, the nation's leading rusher, to 121 yards and a paltry 3.3 yards per carry. Just in case you don't appreciate how a tall a task that truly was -- at 188 yards/game for the season – Hubbard's on pace to average the most yards per outing by a FBS runner since LaDainian Tomlinson's 196 per game at TCU in 2000.
 
Neal Brown knows the challenges of trying to solve a talented Texas front seven. In his first season as the offensive coordinator at Texas Tech in 2010, a lifetime ago in coaching years, the Red Raiders squared off against a Longhorns defense that featured the likes of Sam Acho and Alex Okafor, which  smothered Tech to the tune of minus-14 yards rushing. Since that day in Lubbock 9 years ago, Brown has coached 110 more football games, calling the plays in each and winning the vast majority of them. 
 
Brown never stopped evolving as he gradually mastered the mixed art of movement and subterfuge – dizzying the defense with enough motions and looks to fry a circuit board. Along the way he managed to transform his personal version of the Air Raid offense into one of the most elusive moving targets in college football. 
 
There were signs of it emerging when he helped Tech stun Oklahoma on the Prairie as four-touchdown 'dogs in 2011. Stronger hints of it surfaced when his overachieving Troy squad found a way to hold the ball for 33-plus minutes against a Clemson defense peppered with NFL talent as the Trojans threw a legitimate scare into the eventual national champions in 2016. By 2017, Brown's constantly-test-the-defense's-eye-discipline approach was taking on a life of its own when Troy upped the ante and stunned the LSU Tigers in Baton Rouge on the strength of a 191-yard rushing effort by running back Jordan Chunn. 
 
It's difficult to pinpoint a specific moment in time that Brown learned how to lure defenses into the rabbit hole, but one thing seems certain -- it was a tactic stitched of necessity.  If Brown really has developed an offensive signature (if any coach really has such a thing), it might be the high skill of smoking out the stress points of much larger, much more athletic defenses that are too difficult to simply push around at the point of attack. 
 
And that ain't easy.     
 
Facing a Texas defense on Saturday that's down a few bodies on the backend and is populated at the point of attack by guys who all tip the scales at or around three bills, it could be tempting to test the Longhorns' conditioning early and often with east-west perimeter games. Think back to West Virginia's win over NC State and how quickly those 300-pound nose guards for the Wolfpack had their hands on their hips and their tongues wagging after chasing Sam James on fly sweeps and Kennedy McKoy's outside zone plays for the better part of the first quarter. Elements of that same strategy might serve the Mountaineers well against a big-bodied but somewhat depleted Texas unit bent on stuffing the run.
 
Banged up or not, the Horns' defense has found a way to show signs of life at opportune times, but one key area that this 2019 Texas team has improved on over last year's without dispute is offensive explosiveness. The Longhorns' offense was a nickel-and-dime outfit in 2018, an effective attack that specialized in efficiency more than big play glitz. 
 
First and foremost, Texas protects the football like the Federal Reserve guards interest rates, suffering just 15 turnovers in its  last 19 games. It all starts with the guy behind center. In his last 17 games, Ehlinger has tossed 38 touchdowns against just four interceptions. That's right – four. 
 
This absurd level of ball security is possible because, quite simply, Ehlinger doesn't put the football in harm's way. He's incredibly decisive. If he encounters a defensive look that falls short of clear and obvious, he doesn't stick around to let the pocket crumble while trying to decode things. Instead, when he spots a coverage that isn't immediately to his liking, he tucks the football and takes off. This seems to be especially true on second down – a down in which Ehlinger has carried the ball more than any other and gains 6.8 yards per carry, helping set the table for manageable third-down situations for Texas. That, in turn, directly contributes to the Longhorns' No. 2 national ranking in third-down success.
 
In 2018, the Horns' offense was reliable (Top 20 in third-down success) and relatively error-free (only three FBS teams committed fewer turnovers). But Texas lacked firepower. In fact, the Longhorns finished last season as the only Power 5 team without a single play from scrimmage of 50-plus yards. 
 
This year, Texas has maintained its penchant for proficiency (No. 2 in the country in third-down success) and ball security (tied No. 15 in the FBS in turnover avoidance) while adding considerable pop to the portfolio. Through four games, the Longhorns have already produced three plays of 50-plus yards (more than 2017 and 2018 combined) and are also on pace to generate their highest total of 40-plus yard plays in three years under Herman. 
 
Texas' newfound production in the splash play department owes in large measure to Ehlinger's continued development as a passer, supported by the fact that all three of the Longhorns' 50-plus yard chunk plays have come through the air. The above mentioned threat of Ehlinger weaponizing his legs (1,054 hard-earned rushing yards in his career) has helped create spacing in the pass game that the junior signal caller has cashed in on to the tune of a 72.9 percent completion rate (the highest by a Texas starter since Colt McCoy's 76.7 percent in 2008). It's Ehlinger's improved awareness and field vision, however, that have been the biggest differences in the Horns ability to produce game breaking plays.    
 
Examples of this are littered throughout the Longhorns' game videos, from Ehlinger's 55-yard scoring strike that saw him smoke out a busted LSU coverage to the 73-yard touchdown against Oklahoma State in which he used his eyes to bait an All-Big 12 cornerback out of position. 
 
The Texas offensive line is big and athletic, but it's also struggled with movement. Pitted against a Vic Koenning defensive scheme that's heavily predicated on stemming and stunts, that could present a crack in the armor of a Horns offense averaging 42 points/game. If preseason All-Big 12 center Zach Shackleford and the big bodies up front don't communicate well enough for Texas to pass off the twist games they'll see from WVU at the point of attack, there could be some Stills sightings in the Longhorns' backfield. 
 
In theory, West Virginia could use all that movement to create confusion and knock the Horns off schedule with a handful of tackles for loss. That would have the added benefit of forcing Texas (remember – they're the nation's second-most successful third-down offense) into more difficult third and long situations. When first and 10s become second and 12s, which can then lead to third and 8s, for example, the advantage obviously bends toward the defense.
 
For a double-digit underdog like West Virginia to defy the odds, the margin for error will be slim. But if the Mountaineers can find a way to take a close game into the fourth quarter (conceivable, considering 12 of the Longhorns' last 18 games have been decided by seven or fewer points) then anything is possible. The longer West Virginia can remain upright in the ring, the heavier the sold-out homecoming environment could weigh and the tighter Texas might become. In a perfect world for WVU, the Longhorns would get rattled into some mistakes and down the stretch those mistakes would multiply like dandelions inside the pressure cooker of a down-to-the-wire finish with the Stripe the Stadium crowd intensifying more with each second that passes on the scoreboard clock.  
 
According to George Strait, fashion in Texas is "a cowboy hat, a belt buckle and a smile."
 
I couldn't help but notice he didn't include "a strong fourth quarter."
 
If West Virginia drags the Longhorns into the final 15 minutes of play with the game up for grabs, there's plenty of statistical evidence to support the hope Mountaineer fans harbor for a miraculous outcome. Let us count the ways …
 

• Sam Ehlinger stands as one of the nation's most productive passers this season in nearly every statistical category, including a fourth-quarter passer rating of 217.5 which is the eighth-best in the country. But bear with me and guess who is parked one spot ahead of Ehlinger at No. 7 nationally with a fourth-quarter passer rating of 225 – Austin Kendall, who's quietly been spectacular in the fourth quarter this season. If you think "spectacular" is too strong a word -- though I did preface it with "quietly" -- I'd be happy to meet you in the middle with "impressive." Deal? Either way, Kendall's connected on 80 percent of his fourth-quarter throws with three touchdown passes against zero picks. And …
• Texas has allowed more fourth-quarter TD passes (6) than any other Power 5 team.
• The Longhorns are giving up an average of 14 fourth quarter points per game. Only one FBS team (Louisiana Monroe) is allowing more.  
• The Texas offense has averaged 4.9 yards per rush through the first three quarters of game action this year. In the fourth quarter, that figure plummets to 3.3 yards per rush.
• The Horns' defense through the first three quarters of play has allowed just 3.0 yards per rush. In the fourth quarter, however, that number swells to 4.9 yards yielded per rush. This can be the downside of featuring a cast of 300-pound defensive linemen (including a 340-pound nose tackle) whose conditioning threshold is pushed to the max as the snap count climbs higher and the game wears on. 

I'll admit when I combed through those fourth-quarter numbers I might've done a bit of intuitive cherry picking -- but there sure were plenty of cherries to pick. In short, the Longhorns at large have played the first third of this season like one of the best teams in college football -- but in the fourth quarter they've been "all hat and no cattle."
 
For the uninitiated, that's a Texas colloquialism depicting a person who talks boastfully but lacks substance behind his words. I appreciate a good ole saying like that. It's straightforward and leaves little to the imagination. If you hear it uttered in a barber shop somewhere near the Forty Acres you don't need a debate team to translate it for you. 
 
Even simple-minded folks, of which I am, can understand it without help -- unlike some other phrases we might hear come out of that part of the world. 
 
Things like "Texas is back."
 
I'll see you at the 50.