Texas dominates Mizzou, but Tom Herman continues search for answers on offense

In the Texas Bowl, defense and special teams bail out the Longhorns offense, which stagnated in 2017

Tom Herman was brought to Texas to build the Longhorns back to the national stage as a complete football team. With his first season in Austin now complete, the one side of the ball that's incomplete is his side -- the offense. 

Sure, the Longhorns got a relatively dominant 33-16 win over Missouri inside NRG Stadium on Wednesday night, but they did it with stellar defense and a punter in Michael Dickson who kicked 10 of his 11 punts inside the 20-yard line -- eight inside the 10 -- and legitimately deserved to be the game's most valuable player.

That's great since it secured Texas' first winning season since Mack Brown's last as head coach in 2013, but let's be real, it should look better against a Missouri team that was a paper tiger. The Tigers didn't beat a single bowl team this year, scored 18.4 points per game against teams that did go to bowls during the regular season and looked lost for the majority of the Texas Bowl.

Job No. 1 for Herman in the offseason is to pick a quarterback.

He inherited Shane Buechele from the Charlie Strong regime and seemed to trust him enough, but Buechele can't seem to stay healthy. An strained groin knocked him out of the victory against the Tigers, and that's after he suffered an ankle injury earlier this year.

It became clear throughout the course of the season that Herman and his staff would prefer freshman Sam Ehlinger. The problem is that the offense never seemed to progress under Ehlinger. On Wednesday, the Tigers stacked the box against him often, expecting the zone read and quarterback runs to be big parts of the game plan. He has to progress as a passer. A completion percentage of 56.5 -- Ehlinger's mark during the season -- won't cut it.

After one year under Herman, the identity of the Texas offense is still missing.

What's more, offensive tackle Connor Williams declared early for the draft, Armanti Foreman is now gone, and Chris Warren transferred. Lil'Jordan Humphrey was suspended for the Texas Bowl, and the biggest weapon of the season -- Dickson, who won Ray Guy Award as the nation's best punter -- declared for the NFL draft.

Herman's Texas program is incomplete after Year 1. That's what the bowl victory against an overrated Missouri team proved. Nothing more, nothing less.

Year 2 needs to start with a quarterback decision, and end with an offensive identity that resembles the Houston and Ohio State units that Herman led to national prominence.