Fallacies and Lessons Learned from Texas vs Arkansas 2021
When Texas announced it was leaving the scorned Big 12 for the Southeastern Conference in late summer 2021, only to immediately get pummeled by a perennial SEC doormat in Arkansas, it felt like a sick joke for Longhorn fans.
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I couldn’t have been more confident going into that game. When it briefly looked as though Kitan Crawford had recovered a muffed punt in the shadow of Arkansas’ end zone, I was sure the rout was on. The rest of the game, though, I was as wide-eyed and horrified as Hudson Card seemed to be.
For rivals, it was the juiciest form of prime schadenfreude, cooked medium rare. It exposed how far the Longhorns’ new coach, Steve Sarkisian, had to go with his new roster—not just to compete in the SEC, but in the Big 12 as well. The rest of that season revealed more holes in Texas’ program, even though cracks of light were shining through by year’s end.
It’s been widely discussed how the loss to the Razorbacks laid bare to Sark and Texas what the Longhorns needed from a roster-building standpoint: size, speed, and NFL-caliber players. I wrote after the game, amidst the onslaught of texts from haters and les misérables seeking company, “It shouldn’t be this hard.” That was one of the many moments reminiscent of the famous line in Forgetting Sarah Marshall’s Dracula musical: “It’s getting kind of hard to believe things are going to get better. I’ve been drowning too long to believe that the tide’s going to turn.” I remember thinking at the time that Bijan Robinson’s presence on the team should serve as an invitation back to college football’s tightrope, where the contenders walk. We shouldn’t be this bad with a player like him. And that was a fallacy in my own thinking. One player on the roster doesn’t invite you up to the exclusive place in college football where the contenders hang out. In fact, it’s the opposite. Texas fans hadn’t had a player like Robinson in so long (they don’t come around often, to be sure) that I overlooked the deficiencies elsewhere. Contenders are contenders because of depth, not a singular difference-maker.
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The truth was, Texas was bloated and lacking talent at wide receiver and quarterback, thin (literally) in the trenches, and the talent they did have was very raw. I also think that night was instructive for Sark. He continued to dial up deep shots for Card, and the offense couldn’t connect, so he quickly pulled the young quarterback for Casey Thompson. It was clear Sark wanted to call the playbook that he envisioned, rather than the one that the team could execute. He had a quick ripcord with a young quarterback. Later, Sark still called a lot of deep shots for a young Quinn Ewers where the ball hit the turf a lot, but he’s been more patient with him and less stubborn, crafting the offensive play-calling around Ewers’ strengths and sticking with him through struggles. All have been better for it.
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The loss stung because it made clear that there were no quick fixes for what the burnt orange and white were collectively witnessing. The coaches, players, and fans have stronger stomachs now because growth, both physical and cultural, takes time. Thirty-eight months have been endured, and it’s the Longhorns’ chance to show just how much has changed.
