On Texas Football’s Lunch with the Coach: Excitement turns to nervousness and then back to preparation for the Longhorns
On the latest video edition of On Texas Football’s Lunch with the Coach, Inside Texas’ Bobby Burton and former state championship-winning coach Bryan Erwin discuss the Longhorns’ win over Oklahoma State that clinched the Big 12 Championship and a spot in the College Football Playoffs for the first time ever.
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Lunch with the Coach is sponsored by Laura Baker of Keller Williams Realty.
Erwin, who coached La Marque to two titles after being a graduate assistant for Texas in the 1980s, said he was excited after the win Saturday but that the emotion quickly turned to nervousness in anticipation of being one of the team’s picked for the CFP.
“It’s hard to put words to (the win over Oklahoma State and the Big 12 title),” Erwin said. “It was just exciting, exhilarating. I went from like big-time excited after the game and then all of a sudden I just get like crazy nervous you know because we needed help to get into the CFP.
“I got the jitters. I mean, I was completely on edge and had to get away from the family. And you know what’s funny, Bobby, is that we are so bad because as fans and alumni we go through, ‘okay, we just want the Big 12 championship,’ to ‘okay, can we get in? We gotta get in – we gotta get in’. And then it was ‘we want the best matchup. We don’t want the Washington matchup. We want to play Michigan, you know, because we match up better.’ I mean, we’re horrible. What an awesome deal.”
Burton opined that the Longhorns have been “playing with an attitude” since the team was called out by an Iowa State offensive lineman in the week running up to Texas’ win over the Cyclones.
“I felt like that Iowa State game was a turning point,” he said. “They’ve turned it on since then. Texas truly beat the tar out of Texas Tech – I mean, they made Texas Tech look silly. They put 662 yards up on Oklahoma State on Saturday. I mean, Sark was completely in his bag with his offensive play calling on Saturday.”
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Burton asked Erwin about Washington, the Longhorn’s upcoming opponent in the Sugar Bowl. Texas lost to the Huskies 27-20 in last year’s Alamo Bowl so there is a level of familiarity between programs.
“We’ve gotta figure out how to control (Washington quarterback Michael) Penix and the vertical passing game,” Erwin said. “They throw it down the field better than anybody in the country right now. I saw that last year. Going into this season. I was telling everybody I said this Washington team is different. We’ve got to be patient and force him to throw the ball underneath. Of course we got to stone the running game and they’ve got a good running back.
“I like where we stand with being able to make a team one dimensional. And we know we have to make Washington one dimensional. This could easily be a shootout and we’re going to have to get comfortable with that real fast. Hopefully we play a great defensive game and we hold them to, you know, 14-17 points and that’d be great.”
Please go check out the rest of the video for plenty of additional insights from Bobby and the coach.
