By Brett Daniels
The Texas Longhorns have long been the standard in College Football for doing less with more. The flagship university of a state that is rich in both resources (oil and gas money) and talent should not go decades without a conference championship or playing for a National Championship. The hiring of Steve Sarkisian from Alabama coincided with the announcement that Texas and Oklahoma would leave the Big 12 for the SEC and produced a shift in program culture and philosophy.
As an assistant at Alabama, Sarkisian had a front-row seat to how life in the SEC would be for Texas and knew that the recruiting focus and on the field philosophy would have to change to be competitive. The SEC is a “line of scrimmage” league where even the teams at the bottom of the conference have NFL-caliber players on either side of the line. The Big 12 has always been viewed as more of a “finesse” league where teams threw the ball 50 times a game and played very little defense.
This shift in focus was born out in recruiting where the 2021 class ranked 15th overall and would have been 7th best in the SEC, 2022 was 5th overall and 4th in the SEC, 2023 was 3rd overall and 3rd in the SEC, and the 2024 class was 6th overall and 3rd in the SEC. The influx of talent allowed Texas to win the Big 12 in 2023 for the first time since 2009 and earn a spot in the College Football Playoff.
What has Texas done so far in the SEC?
As a member of the SEC so far, the Longhorns have beaten who they were supposed to in a Mississippi State team that ranks near the bottom of the conference in every metric and an Oklahoma team that is offensively challenged. Texas did not fare as well in their match-up against the Georgia Bulldogs on Saturday, losing 30-15 in a game that wasn’t nearly as close as the score would indicate.
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Georgia thoroughly dominated on both lines of scrimmage, shutting down the Longhorn rushing attack (only 29 yards on 27 carries), harassing both Quinn Ewers and Arch Manning on defense, protecting Carson Beck, and opening holes for the rushing game on offense. There were several instances where the speed of the Georgia defense blew up plays that had gone for big gains in previous weeks against other opponents.
In the coming week the Longhorns will face a Vanderbilt team that has an Alabama upset to its credit but ranks toward the bottom of the conference in both offense (5.77 YPP/12th) and defense (5.62 YPP/14th), a Florida team that is better than their record would indicate, ranking near the top of the conference offensively (6.81 YPP/3rd) and near the bottom defensively (5.21 YPP/11th).
Texas will finish out the season against old Southwest Conference foe Arkansas in Fayetteville where the Hogs rank in the middle of the conference in both offense (6.31 YPP/9th) and defense (5.22 YPP/12th), Kentucky a team at the bottom of the conference in both offense (5.02 YPP/14th) and defense (5.58 YPP/13th), and in-state rival Texas A&M (6.23 YPP offense/10th) and (5.10 YPP defense/10th).
Texas should win out against these teams and finish 7-1 in conference which would put them in the mix to play in the SEC Championship Game and almost assure a home playoff game at worst.
To answer the question, Texas is not over its head, at least not yet. There were always going to be struggles with the SEC’s increased interior play, but only Georgia has taken advantage of it. If anything, Texas overperformed early and were aided by other results and an overrated Michigan team to become the No. 1 team, but that was never sustainable.
In fact, at fellow SEC newcomer Oklahoma just shows how not over-their-head Texas has been.
