The University of Texas has a moral responsibility to provide grief counselors to comfort Longhorn fans after surprise defeats that leave these people stricken. Take the game Saturday at Royal-Memorial Stadium when Texas was flogged by UCLA. Where were the mental health professionals when you really needed them? Grief commonly sets in after the Longhorns are beaten by a team the fans expect them to pound easily, in part because of pregame hype promoting the team as a national champ contender when we don't even know these guys' shirt numbers yet. So these great expectations leave the Longhorn faithful suffering from a mental condition know as PUD -- Postgame Upset Depression. You'll know PUD when you hear it in the stands. The five stages of PUD are: 1. 'What the?' 2. 'I can't believe they just did that.' 3. 'I can't believe they just did that -- again.' 4. 'They pay this clown $5 million?' 5. 'Got any of that whiskey left?' You could see PUD coming 'round the bend Saturday afternoon as the Horns were being shot not so much by the UCLA 'pistol' offense as they were by themselves, in the foot. Sitting in front of me in Section 2, directly across from those cheerful nincompoops in the blue shirts, was a guy wearing a set of earphones over a burnt-orange ball cap. With each fumble, each dropped pass, each sideways pass play going nowhere, each flirtation with football hell, this guy would splutter and curse. As if the players could actually hear him. As the game went on and mistakes were made, the spluttering and cursing became more pronounced. I thought this dude's head would eventually explode and his headset would burst into flames. The familiarity was eerie. Hadn't I seen this horror show before in an earlier incarnation? Wasn't there a mugging of similar magnitude I had witnessed on a highway somewhere, Route 66 or something? Or was I California dreamin'? Make that California nightmaring. Next time, Longhorns, do yourselves a favor and schedule Freddy Krueger instead of UCLA. Friends, neighbors and Horns fans, as your grief counselor against PUD, let me just remind you that it's not that bad. The world has not come to an end. Just the football season as we knew it previously. Life will go on. Not a quality life, necessarily, with Top 10 rankings and We're Number One-ings and road trips to, say, Glendale. Sure, a second-tier bowl kind of life. But still, life. Then again, the condition will clear up immediately if Texas beats Oklahoma. So drink three beers and see me in the morning. John Kelso writes for the Austin American-Statesman. E-mail: jkelso@statesman.com. 