Steve Sarkisian calls Alabama game a benchmark for Texas

Texas head coach Steve Sarkisian believes his team has improved from last season. He will have a better idea of just how good the Longhorns are after Saturday night’s showdown with No. 3 Alabama.

Sarkisian spoke with the media Thursday to preview the game. He was asked if this is a statement game for his team and shared that he views it as a benchmark game, instead.

“We’ve made a lot of strides, and we’ve come a long way. I think last year’s game served as a good benchmark. And I think it helped us,” Sarkisian said. “Helped instill some confidence in some players on our team of what they were capable of. We’re gonna go in here Saturday night, and the goal is they get our best shot. And I’m assuming we’re going to get their best shot. And what does that look like, you know?”

The Longhorns nearly stunned Alabama in Austin last fall, despite being without star quarterback Quinn Ewers for much of the matchup. Texas ended up falling 20-19, but not before it put up a heck of a fight.

Sarkisian believes he will have a better feel of his team’s strengths and weaknesses following Saturday’s game.

“We’re going to come out of the game, and in the postgame press conference in the next couple of days, we’ll see where we think we’re good enough and where we were maybe not quite,” Sarkisian said. “And that might not be personnel. That might be scheme, that might be unforced errors. What does that look like? What does that look like in all three phases?”

Sarkisian would obviously love for Texas to upset Alabama as a 7.5-point underdog. However, even if it doesn’t, playing well would let the Longhorns head coach know that he has his program headed in the right direction.

“There’s no question we wanna go win this ballgame. We’re putting forth every ounce of effort that we have to try to go do it, like we do every week. But in the end, I think both teams are going to walk out of this stadium with a real firm understanding, ‘OK, this is where we’re at. And then this is what we need to do to continue to develop our team for the next 10 regular season games and trying to go win a conference championship,'” Sarkisian said. “And quite frankly that’s one of the beauties of playing these games like this early in the season.”