Kirk Herbstreit shares early takeaways from Texas' road victory over Alabama

Shortly after wrapping up his primetime call of the Texas–Alabama game on ESPN with Chris Fowler, color commentator and analyst Kirk Herbstreit had some time to digest the game he just witnessed. Then he took to social media to share what he’d learned on Saturday evening.

Herbstreit thinks this game will be a positive inflection point for the Crimson Tide, a moment for them to learn and improve from. But most of all, he was left impressed by the Longhorns strong showing.

“Good for [Texas],” Herbstreit said. “This is a talented-motivated-and tight knit football team!”

He added that it ws evident that whatever head coach Steve Sarkisian had been preaching about being aggressive and tough had taken hold.

“Happy for Sark,” Herbstreit said. “3rd year his culture of aggression-mental toughness-and resiliency is very evident!”

As for Alabama, it was simple: Learning and getting better.

“[Alabama] will learn from this and get a lot better!” Herbstreit said.

Texas came in with an aggressive style on offense

After a 34-24 win, Sarkisian and quarterback Quinn Ewers shared how their trust in each other underpinned an aggressive offensive approach.

Sarkisian knows his quarterback can go out and make high-level throws, even against the Alabama defense. And Ewers is well aware that his coach is going to have things cooking offensively.

“We always trust coach Sark. He’s got it dialed up, and we prepare the way we prepare, we’re hard to stop,” Ewers said to ESPN sideline reporter Holly Rowe after the win.

Sarkisian knew he had to back up his aggressive talk with an aggressive play calling streak.

“Well I think the biggest thing was — I told the players just to trust me. We were going to be aggressive in everything that we did and I had to back up what I preached if I wanted them to play that way, too,” Sarkisian said.

Texas didn’t hold back on Saturday, scoring the first touchdown on a rainbow deep ball from Ewers to speedster Xavier Worthy. And in a back-and-forth game throughout the second half, the Longhorns didn’t go into an offensive shell. Sarkisian kept calling early-down passes and Ewers kept making challenge throws, attack downfield and placing balls into difficult spots vs. Alabama coverage.

But even with an aggressive mode, Sarkisian knew it wasn’t a sure thing for his squad to pull off a road win.

“Well I didn’t want to tell the guys that they were 52-1 in their last 53 games,” Sarkisian said of Alabama playing at Bryant-Denny Stadium. “So I guess they’re 52-2 now.”