How do the Longhorns leave a hostile Bryant-Denny Stadium with a win? Texas sees inward focus as the key to victory
The largest stadium in the Big 12 is in Austin, Texas. The second largest is in Norman, Okla., a place the Longhorn football program doesn’t have to travel.
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Texas is used to playing in front of 100,000 fans, but it’s typically a friendly 100,000.
The No. 11 Longhorns venture to Tuscaloosa, Ala. this week to battle the No. 3 Alabama Crimson Tide. Bryant-Denny Stadium will be packed to the gills for a contest under the lights, and the 100,000 there will create the largest and most hostile environment the Longhorns have played in since an ill-fated 2021 trip to Arkansas that ended in a 40-21 defeat in front of 74,531 vicious Razorback fans.
“The way I explained it is imagine being the away team at our home games,” UT linebacker Jaylan Ford said on Monday. “I feel like we haven’t really had to go to a stadium that’s going to be similar to what it is here. It’s going to be something they’ll have to experience and you’ve got to still focus on what’s in front of you.”
Playing in front of 100,000 hostile fans is a challenge. Playing in front of 100,000 hostile fans versus Nick Saban‘s Alabama Crimson Tide is an obstacle few teams have surmounted since the seven-time national champion coach took over in Titletown in 2007.
Steve Sarkisian is aware of the Longhorns’ challenge in venturing to Bama. So too is Jeff Banks, Kyle Flood, AJ Milwee, and even former Bama running back Keilan Robinson.
But there’s only one team in crimson across from the burnt orange Saturday at 6 p.m., and that was one of Sarkisian’s main points of emphasis coming out of his Monday press conference.
“We can’t get caught up thinking we’re going to play all 17 teams that Coach Saban has had the last 17 years, and the players and coaches on them,” Sarkisian said Monday. “We’re playing the 2023 Alabama football team, which is very good and they’re very well coached. That’s going to be a great environment for college football. That being said, we need to focus on what we need to do.”
That’s a message that his players echoed. Tight end Ja’Tavion Sanders reiterated the need for he and his teammates to approach playing in the hostile environment the right way, or else what befell the Longhorns in 2021 could occur again in 2023.
“If we don’t come out there with the right mindset, we’re definitely going to get whooped,” Sanders said Monday. “We’ve got to come into this game empty-headed, clear-minded, and put the past in the past. Even our game last year with them, put it in the past. We’re a whole new team, a whole new season. They’re a new team. We’ve got to come out there and execute the gameplan.”
Caging the elephant
On defense, the gameplan will focus on limiting the damage Crimson Tide quarterback Jalen Milroe causes. Milroe, a Katy (Texas) Tompkins product who was at one point committed to the Longhorns, has tremendous ability as a runner and displayed improved passing acumen during the Tide’s week one win over Middle Tennessee.
Milroe’s dynamic athleticism, along with the rest of the talent Saban has recruited to keep his program safely within college football’s upper echelon, is an area of focus for the Longhorns this weekend.
“Definitely a different kind of factor when you have a guy with his athleticism back there in the backfield,” Ford said of Milroe. “It’s about making sure our rush lanes are straight, making sure everybody is containing him. He gives them a different factor when he’s able to use his legs.”
Longhorn defensive coordinator Pete Kwiatkowski has shown an ability to stop dual-threat quarterbacks in the past, including one of the more well-known Bama signal-callers in the Saban era in Jalen Hurts.
But it’s not just the Milroe show under new offensive coordinator Tommy Rees. The offense features a backfield with talented Texans like Jase McClellan, who ripped an explosive run in last year’s 20-19 win for Bama, and Jam Miller, not to mention Roydell Williams and Justice Haynes. There are also difference-makers out wide like Isaiah Bond, Jermaine Burton, and Kobe Prentice.
The run and the pass will threaten Texas, and the Horns know they need to be able to stop both.
“We know that Alabama’s gonna come in and give us their best shot, so we’ve got to make sure we hold up things on our end and make it a game,” Jahdae Barron said. “Their wide receivers are very fast. I love what they do, and they’re all deep threats. So we’ve got to make sure we’re ready for them, and that we’re on top of that.
Stemming the Tide
Saban has evolved into a program overseer but his specialty as a coach is defense. As usual, the Crimson Tide boast a high quality defense called by veteran coordinator Kevin Steele.
The Longhorn offensive line, specifically interior linemen Hayden Conner, Jake Majors, and DJ Campbell, have had better performances than the one the trio put on the field versus Rice. Their improvement is important to the potential quality of the Longhorn run game.
That run game helps facilitate execution in the pass game. Quinn Ewers captivated UT faithful versus Alabama last year with his supernova of a start. That outing was cut short by a hard hit from Dallas Turner.
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Since then, Ewers has worked to become a leader and a better quarterback, but deep passing — a critical component of Sarkisian’s offense — remains a part of his game where progress has not yet fully been made evident in live action.
Last week, Ewers was 0-for-6 on passes of 20 or more yards, according to Pro Football Focus.
Improvement there will be key for Texas win as seven-point underdogs. It’s a place where Ewers said he’s dedicated a significant amount of attention during the spring and summer.
With that in mind, Ewers isn’t putting pressure on himself to go out and beat Bama with the deep ball. He’s giving himself the task of playing up to the team’s standard that they tried to set during the time between the Alamo Bowl and Week 1.
“I think all the work we put in this offseason and what we went through last year,” Ewers said. “I think we’re all ready for that next step.”
Connecting on deep passing will take chemistry with No. 1 target Xavier Worthy. On Monday, Worthy recognized the challenge of doing that versus a secondary that features Kool-Aid McKinstry, Terrion Arnold, and other talented defensive backs.
“They all communicate,” Worthy said. “They move very well around the football. All of them are smart.”
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The run game will be important, but finally making Sarkisian’s offense explosive will tell the tale for the Longhorns.
High Cotton
The Longhorns are aware of the need to play well on both sides of the ball versus Bama, but their desire to do so isn’t related to the fact that their opponent on Saturday is the Crimson Tide.
“We focus on our preparation and what we need to do,” Sarkisian said. “Naturally, Bryant-Denny Stadium is a heck of an environment. They do a tremendous job at Alabama with their game day, the electricity in the stadium. The key to the drill is focusing on what we need to do.”
Only eight teams have been able to top Saban as a visitor during his tenure as Alabama head coach. It’s a difficult place to play for a variety of reasons, but the hostile atmosphere is something Texas is not backing away from.
“You should love these games,” Worthy said. “The crowd’s into it. It’s loud the whole game. It’s just fun the whole time.”
It’ll be one of the most difficult environments a Sarkisian-coached team will have ever walked into. In the Horns’ preparation, they aren’t worrying about what’ll surround them. They’re focused on the team wearing stormtrooper white jerseys on Saturday.
“We just want to be enamored with us at the end of the day,” Ewers said.
