Don't expect Texas to carry the SEC banner at the forefront of its charge

The lone representative of the Southeastern Conference remaining in the first-ever 12-team College Football Playoff is the Texas Longhorns. Thanks to Texas’ 39-31 win over Arizona State in the Peach Bowl on New Year’s Day, the conference will collect a smooth $14 million to be spread out among its 16 members.

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Say it with me Alabama, Arkansas, Auburn, Florida, Georgia, Kentucky, LSU, Ole Miss, Mississippi State, Missouri, Oklahoma, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas A&M, and Vanderbilt: thank you Texas.

The Longhorns being the lone team from its league comes as a slight surprise considering Georgia was on the other side of the bracket. But once Marcus Freeman was through coaching a masterpiece against the Bulldogs in the Sugar Bowl, Georgia was sent back home before reaching the round of four for the second straight year.

With Notre Dame in, that’s one independent in the CFP semifinals. Texas is the SEC team. The Big 10 has two teams in with Ohio State and Penn State in the final four.

The Longhorns are carrying a banner for the league.

Do UT fans really care if Texas carries it at all?

The school will certainly accept that yoke, with leadership figures and Steve Sarkisian himself likely to say things like “we’re proud to represent the SEC and be the last team standing from our league.” Which undoubtedly is a nice point of pride.

And the Longhorns have tried to do right by the SEC this year, despite ill-informed protestations that the infusion of burnt orange into the league would lead to many instances of the Longhorns attempting to put weight behind outsized bravado to get what it desired in its new home.

Go back to any statements from UT-Austin leadership, or even SEC leadership at various events like Spring Meetings, the SEC Celebration in Austin, Media Days, and more, and you won’t find anything of the sort from Texas.

Even think back to the bottle throwing incident from the first Georgia game. Texas paid its fine and said all the right things about how those actions were not tolerated, going so far as to get Minister of Culture Matthew McConaughey to call the affair a “bogey move.”

But emotionally, Texas is in this one for Texas. You won’t hear many, if any, serious “S-E-C” chants that tend to fill stadiums when SEC teams are doing well should the Longhorns be successful in their next one or two games. The only time Texas did that this year was at Texas A&M, and it was a small few who did that to poke fun at the in-state rival for failing to take advantage of what they thought was a 100-year decision on the 100-yard field.

The SEC will be represented by the patch on the Longhorns jersey, but they’ll add nothing to Texas’ efforts to defeat Ohio State in the Cotton Bowl then whoever may come in the National Championship should they get past the Buckeyes. That’s not meant to be a jab at its current conference home, but just a realistic assessment of where loyalties lie for Longhorns fans and supporters, and an understanding of what actually wins football games.

That doesn’t mean it’s impossible to enjoy looking back on conversations, posts, and bold assertations made by countless non- and anti-Texas college football fans that said Texas had no chance to do anything of consequence in the league. Paul Finebaum called Texas irrelevant in 2021 about a month and a half before he was commenting on the Longhorns joining the league. Those barbs continued even into 2024 ahead of Texas’ first season in the league, yet here the Longhorns are carrying a banner for the league.

Texas and its fans aren’t doing it reluctantly. They’re certainly glad to be the only SEC team left.

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But it by no means will be at the forefront of their charge against the Buckeyes. Texas is glad Texas is still in it.