This is it. This is the moment we’ve all been waiting for ever since news first broke in July of 2021 that Texas and OU would be moving to the SEC.
After three years of waiting and anticipating, Texas kicks off its first SEC game this Saturday against Mississippi State.
The Longhorns are brimming with confidence and eager to take on the challenge the league presents.
“This (the SEC) is the baby NFL,” Texas wide receiver Johntay Cook said. “So we just want to show them what we got.”
What Texas has got is a number-one ranking in the country. Texas has the number one-ranked scoring defense in the country (5.5 ppg) and the 11th-best scoring offense in the country (47.5 ppg). It’s enough to give any team a big head.
“I think we’ve got a pretty cool swagger about us right now, but that swagger has been earned by the hard work they put in day in and day out,” said Texas head coach Steve Sarkisian.
Spoken like a man who learned how to coach under Pete Carroll at USC. But like those USC teams of yore, this Texas team is working hard during the week and having fun on Saturdays.
“We go out there and we enjoy the game of football and we show people that we enjoy it,” said Texas center Jake Majors. “I think that's a swagger within itself. Because sometimes this game causes you to be all tense and stressed out. I feel like this team just goes out there on Saturdays and just has fun.”
Texas linebacker David Gbenda said that loose feeling, or swagger, is the reason this team is rolling like it is.
“We work so hard, and we got to make sure we have fun,” said Gbenda. “It's all a like-minded group that wants the same thing, to be dominant. We just love each other and have fun out there. That's really the formula for success.”
Of course, it is easy to have fun when you’re rolling through opponents every week. To be sure, tough challenges lie ahead. But Sark says he has built this team not to get sucked into letting the level of their opponent dictate how they play.
“The mental intensity needed to compete every week,” Sarkisian said when asked about the difference between the Big 12 and the SEC. “It’s every week. I look up and Missouri is in overtime with Vanderbilt last week. You look up the week before and Georgia is in a dog fight with Kentucky down to the very end. This league is challenging from top to bottom so you have to have the right mental intensity throughout the week in your preparation so you can put your best foot forward every Saturday.”
Sark says his players have brought into that philosophy as well.
“I think our guys believe in our formula for success, they believe in preparation. That preparation in practice creates the confidence to just go play,” Sarkisian said Monday. “I think they’re so focused on what we need to do that they stay really consistent in our approach throughout the week. We stay really consistent in our pre-game warmups. We stay really consistent when we come out of the locker room. This group is confident and their confidence comes from the belief of the preparation that we put into it.”
Linebacker David Gbenda agrees.
“Coach Sark says all the time he's built the team to, regardless, of if it’s the ones, twos, threes or fours, that you're gonna get the best of Texas,” Gbenda said. “The standard is a standard.”
Right now, the standard is winning championships.
“The SEC slogan, ‘it just means more,’ matters,” said Sarkisian. “I feel like at Texas, it just means more here too. There is a standard here that is very high and there is an expectation of performance. It’s not just in football, it’s in every sport. For us, whether it was the Big 12 or the SEC, there’s an expectation that we’re going to compete for a conference championship year in and year out and there’s an expectation that we’re going to compete for a national championship. So, the conference may have changed but our standard and our expectations really haven’t.”
To the rest of the SEC, that probably sounds like cockiness.
At Texas, it’s called swagger.
WHO WILL START AT QUARTERBACK?
Arch Manning is the presumed starter right now with Quinn Ewers being designated as “doubtful” on the school's first-ever injury report.
But Ewers is making quick progress in his recovery.
“Quinn practiced today,” Sarkisian told the press Monday afternoon. “I was actually impressed with where he was today, but that’s been his trajectory since the injury happened. I feel like he keeps getting incrementally better day by day.”
But Sarkisian’s cautious wording about Ewers’ progress doesn’t exactly match up with what we heard from wide receiver Johntay Cook who was asked how Ewers looked in practice.
“Amazing as always,” Cook replied.
Kirk Bohls of the Houston Chronicle then followed up asking, “You don’t notice that he has even been hurt?”
“Nah,” said Cook. “Not at all.”
Now to be fair to Cook, that was the first time he had been brought out to speak with the press and Bohls’ question was a bit leading. But if you’re a big-time Quinn Ewers fan, you have to be encouraged by the optimistic progress he seems to be making.
Still, that doesn’t mean he’s going to play Saturday against a team that he probably doesn’t need to play against to win the game.
“He’s got to do enough to show me he can play,” said Sarkisian prior to Cook’s interview. “Can he execute the game plan? I kind of need to see how he responds from today’s (Monday’s) work, and then what it looks like on a Tuesday, then a Wednesday, which are pretty heavy days for him, and then how he rebounds on Thursday. It’s going to be kind of a work in progress.”
AROUND THE SEC:
(all times Central)
Kentucky vs. Ole Miss (11:00 am)
Oklahoma vs. Auburn (2:30 pm)
Arkansas vs. Texas A&M (2:30 pm)
Georgia vs. Alabama (6:30 pm)
South Alabama vs. LSU (6:45 pm)
Georgia vs. Alabama is the game of the obvious game of the week.
I’ve been thinking more and more that Georgia might not be the complete team we thought they were. The defense is as incredible as ever, 3rd in the country in scoring defense. But the offense remains a work in progress. They currently rank 58th in the country in scoring offense.
Compare that with Alabama who is sixth in the country in both scoring offense and defense. Kalen DeBoer hasn’t missed a beat since taking over for Nick Saban (no small feat).
Given that this game is in Tuscaloosa, I lean towards the Tide in this one.
By the way, the schedule for Georgia doesn’t get any easier after this. They still have to come to Texas and to Ole Miss before getting Tennessee at home. That’s why I have predicted they will not make the SEC championship game.
The rest of the games all feel like yardstick games. We’ll start to get some more accurate measurements this week.
OU and Auburn are both in a bad place right now with what can be generously described as “shaky” quarterback situations.
For the first time this year, Ole Miss will face a defense that actually has a pulse. Quarterback Jaxson Dart is on pace for 4,500 yards passing this season. This is our first chance to try to figure out if the Rebels really are as strong on offense as we suspect or if the gaudy stats are just the result of a creampuff schedule.
Arkansas and Texas A&M are in a similar situation. They are both teams that have blown a winnable game against a ranked opponent. Both teams need this win to keep their season on track. However, unlike A&M, Arkansas at least knows who its quarterback is.
I wrote after the SEC Media Days that most of the time you hear those coaches speak and you know they’re just saying what they need to say to try to get the fan base excited. But there was something different in the way that Arkansas head coach Sam Pittman talked about the play of transfer quarterback Taylen Green. The Boise State transfer has been nothing short of phenomenal since arriving in Fayetteville.
TWEETS OF INTEREST:
The college football world is buzzing after UNLV quarterback Matthew Sluka announced he is calling it a season to preserve his redshirt year over unpaid NIL promises.
I never thought I would say this, but it is hard to blame the young man.
Schools need to be held accountable to the promises they are making these kids and if they aren’t going to live up to their obligations then why should the kid continue to put his body at risk?
UNLV is denying that it didn’t live up to its end of the bargain, but they kind of have to do that. Just think about the message Sluka is sending any player even considering playing for UNLV. This could kill any and all recruiting momentum.
Matthew Sluka is never going to play quarterback in the NFL. This guy's only chance to make any kind of big money from football is right now. He’s the quarterback of a team that had a legitimate shot to make the playoffs. There will be plenty of schools lining up to pay him (for real) to come play for their team next season.
But considering Sluka will end up making money, the people who are really hurt here are the other players who, in all likelihood, just lost out on their opportunity to potentially win the conference and play in the CFP.
But whose fault is that? Is it Sluka’s or UNLV?
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Of course, there is also this argument.
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This week (playing Mississippi State) is an excellent time for our friend Kyle Umlang bring up this travesty of justice.
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Nobody will be more excited to see this Tweet than @Ketchum who rather boldly predicted it would be Kade Klubnik and not Cam Ward who will win the ACC Player of the Year award at the end of the season.
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Army isn’t ready for what’s coming for them this year. Do yourselves a favor and go look at some of the highlights from Navy quarterback Blake Horvath.
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You don’t have to be a poker player to know that this is a very, very bad beat.
The pocket Kings had an 83 percent chance to win before the first three cards were dealt and they improved to a 97 percent chance to win after the flop.
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And with news this week that the Pac-12 is rebuilding itself through the Mountain West Conference ranks, I leave you with a little more realignment news.
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