Alabama-Texas game will provide answers on both teams

There’s perhaps no game more anticipated in the first month of the 2023 college football season than the Week 2 matchup between Texas and Alabama. The Longhorns and Crimson Tide are set to face off for the second time in as many seasons after a 2022 matchup that saw Alabama walk out of Austin with a 20-19 win on a last-second field goal.

The 2023 meeting will take place in Tuscaloosa with Texas looking to exact its revenge. As On3‘s JD PicKell explained in a recent episode of The Hard Count, it will also answer plenty of preseason questions surrounding both teams.

“This game, to me, we start getting some answers,” PicKell said. “Because there’s no weak opinions anywhere in the country about Texas or Alabama. The majority opinion on Texas is they’re trending upward. They’re on their way up They’re climbing the steps in Year 3. You’ve got Quinn Ewers gonna hopefully be in his zone. You have Steve Sarkisian. Have that culture now solidified. You’ve got a roster where now at a place to where its really Steve Sarkisian’s guys. Everybody is believing that Texas is on their way up.

“On the flip side of that, the majority opinion on Alabama is that Nick Saban and Alabama are no longer the kings of the college football world. A part of that is true because Georgia’s got a couple of natty’s to show for it that they are the kings right now. But everyone’s kind of just discrediting what Alabama’s gonna be this year because we don’t know what they’re gonna be at the quarterback position. They’ve got a lot of unproven pieces on the offensive and defensive side. You’ve got two new coordinators. Everybody’s assuming that Alabama is on the decline. So you can have those opinions in the preseason about Texas and Alabama, but we get to line it up in this game and find out where they’re actually at. So it’ll be a great litmus test for us.”

Coming off of a season in which it missing the College Football Playoff for just the second time under Saban, Alabama brought in new offensive and defensive coordinators. They’ll also have a new quarterback after Bryce Young became the No. 1 pick in the 2023 NFL Draft. However, we’ve seen the Crimson Tide rebuild many times.

Texas, on the other hand, finished 8-5 last year in Sarkisian’s second season. The Longhorns have managed just one 10-win season since 2010, but the return of Ewers and several receiving weapons has fans believing this could be their year.

PicKell broke down what a win would signify for either team as Texas prepares to join Alabama in the SEC in 2024.

“If Texas wins — they go into Tuscaloosa under the lights and shock however many thousand people at Bryant-Denny Stadium — I think the narrative coming out of that game will be all the hype, all the talk, everything that we said about Texas and what they could be, might be, should be, it’s all validated in that game,” he said. “Now, to be clear, this is just Week 2. They’re gonna play a whole lot of games after this one and we’ll find out what Texas is really gonna be. But this would be one of those wins where you look at Steve Sarkisian and his time at Texas. This could be kind of that signature win, if you will. Beats his former boss and really cements that Texas, right now, they’re gonna be a team you have to deal with.

“Now, for Alabama, if they win this game, the conversation shifts back to, ‘all right. We’re still the big dog. We’re still a big dog to say the least in the college football landscape. You wanted to talk bad about Alabama all offseason and say what we weren’t gonna be. Well, we just took care of business at home against a team that y’all were talking about what they were gonna be in a positive way.’ So for Alabama, this would kind of be the Saban flex, if you will. Everyone’s saying this, that and the other about ‘Bama. Depending on how they handle business — let’s say Alabama goes out and does what we thought they were going to a season ago and wins this game by a couple of scores — then Alabama just kind of puffs out their chests and says, ‘Remember us? We’re not going anywhere.’ Again, they’re gonna play a lot of games after this. I don’t think we make definitive statements about either team after this game. But it’ll be a really interesting test for us to see if all the talk in the offseason, we get some answers.”

Texas and Alabama will kick off at 6 p.m. CT on Sept. 9 in Tuscaloosa.