Texas coach Tom Herman knows 2017 wasn’t good enough. In his mind, Texas should be competing for conference titles every single season. So, no, 7-6 isn’t going to cut it, even if it accompanied the program’s first bowl win since 2012.

But it’s somewhere to start.

“One of the biggest compliments I get from 2017 from coaches, press people, journalists, TV people is, ‘Wow, you got Texas playing really hard.’ As a coach, that’s about as good a compliment as you can get, that your guys play hard and are physical,” Herman said. “Now, we’ve got to play better and coach better. Our effort and physicality kept us in games when sometimes the pundits said we shouldn’t have been in.”

Herman secured the program’s first winning season since 2013, and it’s easy to envision more when 15 starters return from a team that led in the fourth quarter of four of its six losses. In a Big 12 title race that should be wide open and devoid of an elite team, Texas is as likely as anyone to capitalize.

Talent has never been an issue for the Longhorns, and Herman’s 2018 recruiting class has helped it grow into an even bigger strength. Texas finished with the nation’s No. 3 class, its highest ranking since 2012, when Malcom Brown and Johnathan Gray gave the Longhorns two of the top 10 players in the country. This year, Texas secured the state’s four top talents and seven of the top 10, including defensive backs Caden Sterns, B.J. Foster and Anthony Cook, who should all immediately contribute.

Herman knows Texas hasn’t done anything yet but sees plenty of reason to believe it could very soon.

“Starting, at times, five true freshmen on offense is not normally a recipe for scoring a lot of points,” Herman said. “Those guys gave us everything they got, but now it’s our job in the offseason to develop those guys into players that can win those close games for us.”

He has to settle a quarterback competition between sophomore Sam Ehlinger and junior Shane Buechele, who flip-flopped starting duties for the entirety of the 2017 season.

“We challenged Sam to tighten his release up and improve his accuracy and not turn the ball over. I think we’ve seen him do that,” Herman said. “We challenged Shane to take charge a little more and direct traffic on the field. Don’t just be a participant in the play. You’re the director of the play. And he’s done that. I’m really excited about both our guys’ development over the last few months.”

The defense lost an NFL Draft pick in linebacker Malik Jefferson and two pro-caliber players in safety DeShon Elliott and defensive tackle Poona Ford, but there’s confidence in talents like tackle Chris Nelson, linebackers Gary Johnson and Anthony Wheeler, and defensive backs P.J. Locke III and Davante Davis to blossom into new stars for the burnt orange.

“What we have coming back is just as good and we’re working to be better,” defensive end Charles Omenihu said. “We’re going to be solid everywhere.”

Omenihu and fellow end Breckyn Hager have already proven they can be impact players, combining for 16 tackles for loss in 2017.

“We can run and hit, man. There are some collisions out there every day in practice where you’re like ‘Whoa, that was a real one, boys,’” Herman said. “I don’t know if we know our left from our right, right now, but we can run and hit.”

Everyone on the 40 Acres knows there’s work to be done and benchmarks to hit, but they also see plenty of reason to believe 2018 could be the year Texas snaps out of the malaise that’s left the program dreaming of a double-digit win season for almost a decade.