Steve Sarkisian: 2024 College Football Playoff loss ‘fueled us’ to succeed

Texas experienced its first taste of the College Football Playoff this time last year, making the field in the final four-team playoff. While they ultimately came up short against Washington in the national semifinal, it set the stage for their run one year later.

Defeating Clemson 38-24 in the first round of the first ever 12-team playoff format, Longhorns head coach Steve Sarkisian looked back on the loss to the Huskies and how it’s been used to motivate his group ever since.

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“We don’t forget,” Sarkisian said postgame. “I think that’s the first thing. I think we’ve got a group of guys that were here with us a year ago that didn’t forget that feeling in New Orleans last year.

“To get as close as we were and not to have that opportunity to get into that game I think really fueled us, quite frankly, in the off-season, in winter conditioning, in spring ball, in those summer workouts when we’re running in DKR at 4:00 in the afternoon and it’s 115 degrees and why we put in the work that we put in. We’re far from that. We’ve got a couple more games to go to get there. But it sure serves as great motivation, when you can get close as we were.”

Texas used that chip on its shoulder to down the Tigers in a game that the Longhorns took control of early. After giving up the opening touchdown to Clemson, Texas outscored them 28-3 for the rest of the first half. From there, the outcome was academic despite the Tigers’ best efforts.

The outcome isn’t surprising to the experienced Longhorns group, however. Despite facing a hot Clemson team, Sarkisian’s group continued used last season’s success to futher incentivize their current playoff run, as one fact does seperate Texas from the rest of the playoff field.

“We’ve got to be really proud of one thing,” he continued. “Last year was a four-team playoff. This year it was expanded to 12. But we were the only team of those four teams that made it back into the 12-team playoff. So it’s not easy to get on this stage, and they earned it, and they played really well all year.”

Texas will now prepare for the Peach Bowl against Arizona State on New Year’s Day. Kickoff is set for 1 p.m. ET and will air live on ESPN.