Column - Take it from a student: It's time to make DKR truly intimidating

Those who traveled to Tuscaloosa, Ala. last year to watch No. 11 Texas beat No. 3 Alabama got a unique opportunity: the ability to chant “SEC, SEC, SEC” over and over as the Longhorns defeated the hallmark school of the conference they were joining.

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Those individuals were SEC ready.

Texas head coach Steve Sarkisian has turned a laughing stock of a football program into a juggernaut in just four seasons. The Longhorns are the No. 1 team in the nation, and are recruiting as well as any team in the country, SEC or otherwise. He has built a group that is SEC ready.

But as the biggest game of the year gets closer and closer to kickoff, I’ve begun to question if the rest of the university is SEC ready.

As a student who has only missed one home game in my four years at college (curse that fever that made me miss Arch Manning’s first career start), I have seen the ups and downs of this fanbase during the Sarkisian era. I was there in a downtrodden student section when Jared Casey and the Kansas Jayhawks beat the Longhorns in 2021, but I was also there for the absurd rushing of the gates against Alabama in 2022. Ask anyone there and the scene they’d describe would make the Chisolm Trail look like a small ordeal with how many Longhorns were ushered through a handful of gates.

My concern, however, is that Texas’ students, and fans in general, aren’t ready for what is about to occur on Saturday. For those who haven’t, take a look at how Alabama’s student section and overall stadium energy looked when Georgia came into town three weeks ago. Many have named that the single best environment in college football so far this season despite Alabama playing under a first-year head coach.

DKR needs that exact same energy come Saturday. No excuses. The head coach said so.

“I think for us, it’s a huge component,” Sarkisian said Thursday about the homefield advantage. “I think in my time here through four years, DKR has created an environment that has become intimidating and that has become loud. In this game especially, we need more than our students. We need everybody. In this ballgame, it should be a rocking environment. We need to make it as difficult as we can on Georgia.”

There has been plenty the University of Texas has done wrong with its stadium experience. The student section ticketing system is a mess, and is frankly disrespectful to those that give hundreds of thousands of dollars to the University. Texas has yet to figure out its odd orange smoke, it doesn’t have any sort of pump-up song (somehow Mo Bamba is associated with Penn State) and the overall experience lacks that next-level energy.

As much as we can blame the university, it ultimately sits in the hands of the fans to undo the “wine and cheese” reputation. Texas needs a 2008 Missouri experience, a chance to prove that the Longhorns own one of the best CFB environments in the nation.

For those not familiar with the matchup 16 years ago, there are many eerie similarities. Texas had just beaten Oklahoma in an unforgettable game, and were tasked with hosting a hot 5-1 team. Those that can remember note it as the loudest game in DKR history, the crowd being so loud and rowdy that Texas was able to jump to a 35-3 lead at half. This was the first big game after the north end zone renovation was fully completed, and the fans showed up for it.

Now, in the first big game in SEC play, the fans need to show up for it. There should be zero third-quarter deserters, students that sit down the entire game, or fans too scared to get loud and scream ‘Texas Fight’. 

This game will be unforgettable, a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity for any fan of the sport of college football. But the energy has to be there. The homefield advantage is one of the biggest strengths Texas has coming into this game, and Georgia should feel like they’re playing in Death Valley at night, at a Penn State whiteout, or something much, much worse. 

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It’s time for DKR After Dark to become a feared environment in college football.