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This football team sustained a disappointing loss in the previous game against Georgia. Coaches and players looked forward to getting their revenge in a rematch. Finally, the rematch occurred when the stakes were high. Unfortunately, the team that desperately wanted to avenge its loss could not pull off the victory.
Now we know how Texas A&M felt this season—minus that whole competing for an SEC Championship thing.
There’s no getting around how disappointing that conference championship loss against Georgia was on Saturday night. Texas had plenty of opportunities to win that game. However, playing the “What if?” game will not change the results. Instead, it will only frustrate the (insert your favorite curse word here) out of you.
The Longhorns are playoff-bound.
It is time to focus on a four-game season.
“I have no doubt. These guys give me no reason for pause that they won't rebound and play really good football in two weeks,” Sarkisian said. “They've done that over the last two years. This group will always bounce back. Our backs were against the wall a year ago. We had to win out to get to the Big 12 Championship Game. This year, our backs were against the wall. We had to win out to get to Atlanta. They did that.
“Their ability to respond to adversity, as they touched on—not hang their heads, get right back to work—is something that I continually am impressed by. The resolve that they have, like I said, I have no pause they'll come back ready to work here next week. We’ve got to manage these two weeks the right way. We've got to get as healthy as we can for a four-game season.”
The College Football Playoff Committee will reveal its final brackets at 11 a.m. on Sunday. College football observers have projected Texas to play just about every non-conference championship team in the first round.
Here are a few examples:
Sure, it would have been great to win the conference championship in year one.
However, everyone will regroup and focus on the team Texas will play the weekend of December 20.
“We still have the opportunity to make things right,” Texas cornerback Jahdae Barron said. “It can't just be poor me for the next two weeks. You’ve got to get back to work. We'll fix what we need to fix.”
It is easy to understand why Longhorn fans are frustrated.
It would be nice not to worry about things that need to be fixed in the postseason.
Texas is still talking about cleaning up the penalties. The Longhorn offense goes through stretches of non-productivity. Receivers have dropped balls throughout the season. Special teams were once a strength, but they have been a weakness this year. The offense struggles in the red zone.
“We've had an issue with false starts on field goals,” Sarkisian said. “We have to clean that up on timing. I think that's the second time in two or three weeks that's occurred. In the midst of a play-in game, your football reactions just kick in. Sometimes you make the block; sometimes you don't. Sometimes you see things happen; sometimes you didn't see it happen. I don't know. I have to look at the tape on that particular play.
“But then there's other heady plays, like the last play of the first half. Anthony Hill is lateraling the ball to Barron; we're trying to get in the end zone because our guys knew it was the last play. I think our football awareness is pretty high.
“There are some things, clearly, we need to improve upon because I think we had, I’m not sure, maybe four holdings or something in the game (on Saturday) again, which was something that had reared its ugly head kind of mid-season. I thought we had it rectified. It showed back up again.”
I have said it before: you are who you are as a team at this point in the season. Teams work on fundamentals and technique during winter conditioning, spring football, summer workouts, and training camp. Once the regular season begins, teams focus on game-planning throughout the week. It is hard to fix the big things.
Sarkisian is not going to replace Ewers with Arch Manning. Ewers will start—and finish—every postseason game. Try not to wear yourself out debating whether Sarkisian should make a quarterback switch. He is not going to do it.
Longhorn fans will need to rely on this defense and hope the offense produces enough points for a deep playoff run.
Plus, a bracket that hopefully does not include Georgia.
“I really value this game [SEC Championship Game],” Sarkisian said. “I think this game means a ton to the Southeastern Conference. We joined this conference. I was fortunate enough to be part of this conference as an assistant, coached in it twice. This is a heck of a game. It's an honor to play in it. It was an honor to play in it today. We didn't come out on top. Especially the way it's structured where not everybody gets to play everybody. I think it's probably the right thing to do, to have a championship game.
“Now it's our job to kind of regroup and get ourselves as healthy as we can to go compete in a playoff. We have time. We essentially have a bye to get ready for that game. We'll do the best we can. I know our players will, from a rehab and recovery standpoint. We'll find out who we're playing, put together a plan, and go to work.”
Team Notes
(Provided by the SEC)
• Georgia out-rushed Texas 141-31, marking the 20th consecutive year that the winner out-rushed its opponent.
• This was the eighth rematch of a regular season meeting and the first since 2017. Georgia defeated Texas 30-15 on October 19 in Austin. The team that won the regular season game is 6-2 in the rematch.
• Texas’ Bert Auburn set a championship game record with four field goals and six attempts. The previous mark
was three done five times, most recently by LSU’s Cade York in 2019, and five attempts by Alabama’s Ryan Pflugner in 1999.
• Auburn tied the record for most points by a kicker with 13 (4 FG, 1 PAT). LSU’s Cade York had 13 in 2019 with 3 FG, 4 PAT.
• For the fifth time in championship game history a team recorded two 100-yard receivers as Texas’ Matthew Golden (162) and DeAndre Moore Jr (114) each topped the century mark. It was the first time since 2022 it
happened with LSU’s Malik Nabers (128) and Kayshon Bouttle (107). Golden’s 162 receiving yards ranks as the sixth highest in championship game history.
• The 19 combined points after three quarters are the lowest since 17 in 1998 when Tennessee led Mississippi State 10-7.
• Texas’ Quinn Ewers finished with 358 passing yards which ranks as the seventh highest in championship game history.
• Georgia’s 9:22 scoring drive in the fourth quarter is the longest drive in championship game history (scoring or non-scoring). The previous mark was 8:47 by Alabama in 2009.
• The seven combined field goals (3 by Georgia, 4 by Texas) is a championship game record. LSU (3) and Tennessee (2) combined for five in 2001.
• Georgia tied the championship game record with six sacks set by LSU versus Georgia in 2003. Mykel Williams tied the individual sack mark with two done 12 times.
• The 32 combined points was the lowest-scoring championship game after four quarters. The previous low was 33 in 2002 when Georgia beat Arkansas, 30-3.
Funniest Things You Will See This Week
I get the feeling he hates petting zoos (bad language alert)
Man’s best friend?
Good luck getting those favorable calls next season
Weekend warriors
Sports On A Dime
1. Texas football coach Steve Sarkisian’s response when asked if Georgia was doing something to impact his team or if his team was simply inefficient in the red zone: “ Probably a combination. They're a good football team. They've got good schemes, good players. There were a couple of bang-bang plays we weren't able to get. I think the negative plays kind of hurt us when we got there. I think a couple of the penalties when we got down there hurt us, as well. You're playing behind the chains, which is never where you want to be in the red area. Any time you're in third-and-long in the high road, red, those are difficult circumstances to be in.
“I wish we could have executed a little bit better earlier in the game and stretch the lead when we had some better opportunities. Late in the game, at the end of the ballgame, some of those throw-type situations.
"The overtime was kind of a microcosm of the game. We couldn't put the ball in the end zone. We had to settle for a field goal. That opened the door for them to score and win the ballgame. If we're fortunate enough to see them again, we're going to have to improve in that area.”
2. Sarkisian on the loss against Georgia: “Clearly the penalties were an issue in the first half where we stalled out on some things and in some third-and-longs and whatnot. Our defense played a fantastic first half. I think it was like 260 yards to 54. But the score was 6-3. Clearly, we weren't capitalizing on the opportunities we had. They made the change at quarterback. I think it sparked them some, provided some different style of offense running the quarterback. I thought our guys showed a great deal of resiliency and fight today to fight back to force overtime.
“But at the end of the day we weren't effective enough in the high red to put touchdowns on the board. I think that in and of itself was probably a microcosm of the game because we had plenty of opportunities, but we didn't capitalize on them. The beauty for us is this stings, it's hard, but we get a chance to regroup in a couple weeks and get into the College Football Playoff and go compete for a national championship. I think we're plenty good enough to go win that, but we're going to need to get healthy so we can put our best foot forward to make that happen.”
3. Ewers on why his team struggled to capitalize on their opportunities: “ We were moving the ball well throughout the entire first half. Like Coach Sark was saying, we had plenty of opportunities. I think, again, we just shot ourselves in the foot a couple times, got in some third-and-longs down there that are hard to get out of.”
4. Ewers’ response when asked if Georgia played differently on defense in the red zone: “No, I mean, I feel like we had a good plan going in, for sure. We just didn't capitalize at the end of the day. I think it was all on us. We had plenty of opportunities to go capitalize. Some games go that way. We're definitely going to take a look at it and go from here. It's cool, the new 12-team Playoff, we get to keep playing ball.”
5. Georgia coach Kirby Smart on conference championship games in the new 12-team playoff era: “I don't know what to say about that. I mean, you play football to play the game. Like, you play football to win your conference. You're asking the wrong person about that because I had almost the same number of national championships as I do SEC Championships. I've had years I won the SEC that I didn't win the natty, and then years I won the natty that I didn't win the SEC. They're really hard to come by. I don't know. I think it's going to be interesting, the direction of college football, because I hate to say it, but I didn't think early in pregame that the game had the same juice, didn't think it had the same atmosphere that I've seen it have before.
“Now, once the game started, I don't know if that's because more Georgia fans know where to tailgate, they're hanging on outside because they've been here seven straight years, so the atmosphere improved, but it wasn't as electric early. I think the game made it more electric because it was a great game. The games that have been played in this venue for a conference championship are incredible. For people to devalue that over a Playoff, I just don't see it that way. I value SEC championships. I hold them in high esteem because the work it requires to do that is incredible.”
6. Smart on the fake punt call: “Yeah, I got some history with fake punts in that building. It's one that went our way, you know? Something we've worked on. We carry it. It was great design by our staff, Kirk Benedict and Coach Hartley and those guys. They do a lot of work on punt. We have a lot of formations on our punt. The biggest risk of snapping to it Drew Bobo, he had to catch it and toss it. He'll go down in history with a higher passing percentage than his father at one for one (smiling). He should be a thousand percent.
“I just really appreciate Arian. I thought Dom Lovett made an incredible play on that play because he got a look that we had not seen. He made a decision. He did what we told him not to do, but he did it because he got another look. London had a key block. Did we end up scoring on that or not? It gave us a field goal, a little moment, a little juice. We lost a little momentum at that point. I think it was after they scored the touchdown. It's a lot easier to call it when you think you're going to be in the playoffs either way.”
7. Sarkisian on Georgia fake punt: “We had a return set up. They ran a motion. I thought we actually defended it relatively well. We had a return on where we were doubling the gunner. We lost some of our edge containment there. I thought Jahdae did a heck of a job of chasing the motion. The kid they flipped the ball to is a 10 200-meter guy. I know him well, recruited him out of high school. It turns into a foot race at that moment.
“It wasn't like we got completely duped and had no clue. By the same Jahdae could make that tackle, it was fourth and five or something, and they might have gained six or seven yards on the play. It was a bang-bang play. Nice play by them. Good execution.”
8. SEC Commissioner Greg Sankey : “I don't view that all championship games are equal, so you ask me a question that applies broadly to championship games. Our circumstance with two highly rated teams, I think both teams should be respected for the quality of competition in which they will engage on Saturday. I think the Big 12 has much the same circumstance. I heard Sark talk about being in the game in 2016. Pretty significant disparity between teams. Alabama won that, advanced to the Playoff consistently. I think the answer is a reality of each of those games and the quality of competition.
“I think we're at the highest of that order and would expect a great game. The committee will have to decide. But I would anticipate they'll respect that high level of competition and there wouldn't be a lot of variance given the results. There is, though, as you know, a significant reward for winning, and that is the opportunity to avoid that first-round game, have the understanding of the possible opponents, and prepare for a bowl destination a few weeks down the road.”
9. Sankey’s response when asked if there needs to be automatic playoff bids for teams that make conference championship games: “As it relates to the current format, so we'll skip over the decade since, and there have been times where the impact of our championship game may have removed a team from the national championship limelight. Typically we're accustomed to that working in the opposite direction.
"But let's come to now. What has to be remembered is the task that was put in front of the working group was to look at a format for the '26 season and beyond, and then the College Football Playoff board of directors, working with the management committee, asked for a review to see if it could happen earlier.
"From the time of the 12-team format being introduced in '21, there was a year delay. That resulted from our expansion with Oklahoma and Texas. The next year the Big Ten expanded. All of a sudden our colleagues decided to hit the accelerator pedal. We lost a year of preparation time that it's impossible to recover. We do have an opportunity to go through these two years of experience under existing contracts, and during that process look anew at some of the format issues. I look forward to that. What I've said repeatedly is we have to go through the 12-team process.
“To your question about adjustments around byes, seeding adjustments that can be made, others have spoken about so-called automatic qualification, there will be a time for those conversations. I think that's after we go through this experience. We have to do so in the context of what has happened during the Bowl Coalition experience, learn from the BCS, the CFP at four and the CFP at 12.”
10. Sankey’s response when asked if he was satisfied with Texas’ response to the bottle-throwing incident that occurred against Georgia during the regular season: “ I don't comment on my communication back and forth with my schools. They answered directly and clearly. In fact, I give President Hartzell, Chris Del Conte, even the chair of their board, credit for being very clear immediately that that conduct fails to meet their own expectations. I think that's really important. One of the learning experiences we've had, and this isn't the only bottle-throwing experience, is we don't always have cameras where there need to be cameras. We will work to see how our stadiums may adjust.
“The issue big picture is not completed. It's not concluded. We will have off-season - in fact sooner rather than later - conversations about field-rushing issues. I think we may have set a record in the number. Those create problems. We have to be aware of those problems. I understand the notion of celebratory events. That's one. The crowd conduct. There wasn't simply one bottle-throwing or debris-throwing incident in our league or even nationally. We have to have a better management policy in place across the league.
“I also know that we saw last week conduct issues in rivalry games. We have dealt with those previously within some of our in-conference rivalries. I haven't had much of a flag planting issue. I look at what happened earlier in the day, and I think that multiplied itself later in the day. But we have to be better than each of those elements. Each of those will be part of our conversation as I noted begin sooner rather than later.”
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