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That is the way you change the narrative. That is the way you exorcise those demons that have haunted this program for the past two years. That is the way to inject hope in a Longhorn fan base that was dejected during the bye week. That is the way you turn doubters into believers.
Texas football coach Steve Sarkisian was 1-6 in road games entering Saturday’s game against Kansas State. The Longhorns had a 21-point lead in the third quarter. There was never a double-digit lead that seemed safe during Sarkisian’s tenure. And after Xavier Worthy fumbled in the third quarter, there was a natural reason for trepidation.
Kansas State narrowed its deficit to 14 points in the third quarter. The Texas lead was narrowed to seven points in the fourth quarter. The Longhorn team we followed the past two seasons would have found a way to blow it. They would have added another setback to the long list of disappointing losses. Considering Texas only scored three points in the second half, a letdown was on the table.
It never happened. Texas held on and pulled off a 34-27 victory against Kansas State.
Texas (6-3) has three regular season games remaining.
Leave no doubt.
Win them all.
“Like I told the guys, we're not done,” Sarkisian said. “We've got more work to do. We've got a great opportunity ahead of us in this entire month of November. As I told you guys, what you do in November is what everybody remembers. We've got an opportunity to do something special. I don't think we're done yet. I think our team is hungry. I think that know what's in front of them. They recognize it's one game at a time.
“And as I told them on Monday, I'm asking for 30 days of focus. We need 30 straight days in November of ideal focus as we go through this month of dialing into the opponent, putting in a great week of preparation, and then performing. Tonight (Saturday) was a great start to go do that. Now I think they recognize, hey, we got another one next week, and we've got to prepare to go tackle that task next.”
Sarkisian has wrapped up the goal of playing meaningful games in November.
Texas is currently in a five-team race for the top two spots necessary to compete in the Big 12 Championship Game on December 3.
Sure, visiting New York in December is nice.
Visiting Arlington next month would be better than anything Rockefeller Center has to offer.
TCU is the league’s only undefeated team (6-0). Texas, Baylor, and Kansas State have 4-2 conference records, respectively. Kansas and Oklahoma State each have a 3-3 conference record. However, Oklahoma State seems destined to have more losses due to the injury of quarterback Spencer Sanders.
To make the math simplistic, if Texas wins its next three games, the Longhorns will appear in the Big 12 Championship Game. Sarkisian’s team would own the tiebreakers against every team they are currently competing against.
Here is the remaining schedule for Texas:
Saturday – TCU
November 19 – at Kansas
November 25 – Baylor
Here are the remaining schedules for each team with two-or-less losses in the Big 12.
TCU – at Texas, at Baylor, Iowa State
Baylor – Kansas State, TCU, at Texas
Kansas State – at Baylor, at West Virginia, Kansas
Even if Texas loses against TCU, the Longhorns still have an opportunity to appear in Arlington.
However, we will remain focused on Texas controlling its destiny as the soft reopening of the Burnt Orange Kool-Aid Bar occurs this week.
“The message [after the loss against Oklahoma State] was when you prepare well, when you practice really well, the performance will match because you have the confidence to go do it,” Sarkisian said. “We've been preaching opportunity. We got a great opportunity as a football team in this month in November to do something special. With opportunity, you have to prepare for the moment so you can capitalize on it and maximize it. I thought we prepared really well. I thought we practiced really well. Ultimately, I thought the performance followed suit. That's really been the message just preaching the confidence because of the preparation. Then when you get the performance to match, then your confidence can continue to grow and we're going to need that.
“We’re going to play a lot more good teams. As we keep moving forward, we got another good one [on Saturday], and we're going to need to continue to build on that confidence that we got tonight.”
Sarkisian’s team also picked up something else on Saturday.
Bowl eligibility.
Sure, this program should have higher goals than simply making a bowl game. The goal is to compete for championships. Bowl games should be automatic at Texas.
Nevertheless, you never miss the Texas Bowl until it is gone.
The victory made Texas bowl eligible for the first time during Sarkisian’s tenure at Texas. That means Longhorn fans can resume planning their holidays around a postseason game.
“I think the bowl eligibility thing, it's great,” Sarkisian said. “I'm really happy for our seniors because they didn't have that opportunity a year ago. To solidify that, that's awesome. That's something that we didn't do a year ago. That's great.”
Texas was not playing meaningful games in November last season.
Sarkisian’s team has three regular season games remaining.
Leave no doubt.
Win them all.
“We knew this month in November is going to be a big month for us,” Sarkisian said. “We've got a great opponent coming in [Saturday]. I’m looking forward to seeing all of our fans at DKR next Saturday night. It should be a great environment.”
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1. Sarkisian on his offense struggling in the second half again and holding onto a double-digit lead: “It's not like we just have our head in the sand and we're not aware that we've got work to do. And first of all, we need to play better than we played in the second half tonight. For whatever reason, and I've got to keep digging, we didn't have any false starts in the first half. We come out in the second half in every series in the third quarter. I think we had a false start somewhere in there where, hey, it's now you're playing first and 15, you're playing second 15 football, that's hard to do. So our executions got to improve. But in the end, I thought the drive when they cut it to a one-score game for us to get the ball back down there and get the field goal to put it back to a two-score game, I thought that was really critical. It allowed our defense to stay aggressive, which I thought PK [Pete Kwiatkowski] called a really aggressive style there at the end and we kept trying to rush the passer to get the turnover. So I know for a lot of us it's a great feeling that we were able to do this because we're gonna have to continue to do this, go on the road and win and play good football in tough environments against good teams. So that part is a real positive, but we can play better than we played. And that's the beauty of it all.”
2. Sarkisian on the second quarter 10-point lead: “That was huge, you know, it was a huge turning point in the game. Obviously anytime we’ve been preaching complementary football, and that’s a sign of it, that is to understand, you get a turnover, it’s one thing to turn it into points, and we were able to do that in that sequence and I thought that changed a lot of the momentum of the game.”
3. Sarkisian on leading in the first half: “It felt great. I give a lot of the credit to the players for buying into the plan, for their preparation, and their ability to practice. And I really thought in the second half and the third quarter there, we were moving the ballad, but we kept going backward with things and those are the things we’ve got to improve upon. The false starts, those are pre-snap penalties that cannot happen. I can understand a hold here and there. But the pre-snap penalties we’ve got to clean up, especially on the road.”
4. Texas running back Bijan Robinson on what was working in the run game: “In the second half they brought up some safeties and they understood that we’re going to run the ball. But, in the first half, we had the play called and we understood that whatever we were going to do it was probably going to work. Just because there were more sacks in the second half when they brought those safeties down we knew that we needed to run the ball and that we couldn’t be stopped that whole game.”
5. Robinson on the victory: “We understood that we’re not trying to lose again on the road. That’s when we came out as both offense and defense and the defense came in clutch, obviously. Without them, we would have struggled a lot with this last game. At the end they understood that we put them on their backs. But I think it was just the fight that really got us through this one.”
6. Kansas State coach Chris Klieman on the last play of the game: “We were trying to get one more play off before we would get one because I didn’t want to be in the situation we were in last week, where we ran out of time without any timeouts. We thought we could get one more play off before we’d use a timeout. There were 36 seconds left, we had just gotten a first down. We were going to throw a quick pass and I didn’t see it all break down, but obviously, it did break down and then we used it to get them going, but obviously did do that.”
7. Future Texas quarterback Arch Manning completed 7-of-15 passes for 121 yards with two touchdowns and zero interceptions during his team’s 17-13 loss against St. Charles, which won the District 10-2A title, according to Nola.com.
It was a defensive battle, with neither team reaching the 20-point mark for the third straight season.
Here is a portion of that story:
“The Comet (7-3, 3-0) defense kept Arch Manning and company in check for most of the night, including a big stop early in the fourth quarter. The Greenies (7-2, 2-1) were forced to punt while trailing 14-7, and an errant snap led to three more points on a 20-yard field goal by Tyler Milioto with 7:22 to play.
“The Greenies answered quickly with their best drive of the night, covering 65 yards in eight plays. Anthony Jones ended the drive by hauling in a 37-yard pass in the end zone from Manning, but the snap on the extra point was off target leaving Newman down 17-13 with 4:52 remaining in the game.
“St. Charles picked up three first downs on the ensuing drive, but Newman got one last shot starting at its own 30-yard line with 12 seconds left. A short pass was completed on first down, but the next throw was incomplete as time expired.”
8. Texas wide receiver Jordan Whittington was named a Big 12 Champion for Life. His story is featured on the Big 12’s social channels and inside stadiums during the season, according to a conference press release this past week.
“A native of Texas, Whittington chooses to lead by example and is passionate about doing things the right way. Whittington is motivated to inspire kids to chase their dreams and says
that it is important to him to inspire change in the world. He is an advocate for mental health awareness and is active in the community.
“You have to have uncomfortable conversations to be able to be free, you know, be you,” Whittington said. “I'm one of the people that suffered from it, you know, and I
think the main problem I had was I bottled everything in, 'cuz you know, you're this manly guy, this guy people see as a warrior on the field and stuff like that. But you have to be vulnerable, and you have to just open up, talk to people, and just learn that you gotta be grateful for where you are. You know, we're in a position where a lot of people would love to be, and you
just gotta be grateful and understand that you're doing something that's bigger than yourself."
9. ICYMI
10. Errol Spence Jr. vs. Keith Thurman? It just does not have the same ring as Errol Spence Jr. vs. Terence Crawford. According to BoxingScene.com, Spence vs. Thurman is currently on the table since negotiations between Spence and Crawford fell apart recently
“Errol Spence Jr. hasn’t revealed who he will fight next now that his showdown with Terence Crawford has been, at the very least, pushed into 2023.
“Crawford suggested during his Instagram Live session Tuesday night that Spence will fight longtime rival Keith Thurman. Spence repeatedly has said in recent years that he won’t fight Thurman, but Spence-Thurman seemingly is the most marketable in-house fight Premier Boxing Champions founder Al Haymon can put together after prolonged negotiations with Crawford ceased a few weeks ago.
“Lithuania’s Eimantas Stanionis (14-0, 9 KOs, 1 NC), the WBA’s mandatory challenger for one of Spence’s 147-pound crowns, and Jaron Ennis (29-0, 27 KOs, 1 NC), the IBF’s number one contender for another of Spence’s welterweight championships, both want their title shots next. Spence-Stanionis and Spence-Ennis could be made next, but Thurman (30-1, 22 KOs, 1 NC) is a former WBA and WBC welterweight champion who has lost only a split decision to retired legend Manny Pacquiao and is a contemporary who has long been mentioned intermittently as a potential opponent for Spence.”
