Steve Sarkisian, Kirby Smart share the keys to an in-season rematch

In the NFL, division rivals twice within the same season is part of the standard fare. Just ask Texas head coach Steve Sarkisian, who spent two seasons seeing the Carolina Panthers, New Orleans Saints, and Tampa Bay Buccaneers twice per season while he was the offensive coordinator for the Atlanta Falcons.

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In college football, that’s not as common. But it’s what Sarkisian’s Texas Longhorns will have to do Saturday when they take on the Georgia Bulldogs for the second time this season as part of the SEC Championship Game in Mercedes-Benz Stadium in Atlanta, Ga.

Texas played Kirby Smart‘s Bulldogs in October, falling in Austin by a score of 30-15. The Longhorn defense did its part, but the Texas offense committed four turnovers and failed to eclipse 260 total yards. On the red and black side of things, running back Trevor Etienne rushed 19 times for 87 yards and three scores. Kicker Peyton Woodring added the other 12 Bulldog points via three field goals and three extra points.

Ahead of the first in-season rematch for Texas since it faced Oklahoma in the 2018 Big 12 Championship under a different head coach, how does each program go about preparing to see an opponent for a second time?

Among several things, Sarkisian said he would lean upon his NFL experience. Involved in that process is seeing what worked the first time, what needs to be fixed, and what the opponent might have seen in the games since.

For Sarkisian, one thing stood out from the rest in that first meeting at DKR.

“Again, I do think there are some things you can take from a first matchup, good and bad,” Sarkisian said Sunday on a teleconference. “Clearly there were enough things we need to fix from the first time we played ’em. You don’t get shut out in the first half, you don’t have four turnovers in the game, you’re not trailing 23-0, to get better from the first time we played them.”

Sarkisian said he believed he has not had an in-season rematch as a college coach. Smart, however has done it twice.

In 2017, the Bulldogs fell to rival Auburn before they saw the Tigers again in the SEC Championship. Georgia won the rematch for its first conference title in over a decade. The Bulldogs would fall in overtime in the national championship game in Atlanta.

In 2021, Georgia lost to Alabama in the SEC Championship but would exact revenge on the Crimson Tide in the College Football Playoff National Championship.

The key in that process for Smart was a simple one.

“Don’t overthink it,” Smart said Sunday. “Don’t overthink the entire process. You have to do what you do well. You got to stop what they do well. Offensive coordinators, defensive coordinators, they want to make it about the scheme. They want to make it about changes. They want to make it about how can we execute at a higher level.”

In the end, both teams have 12 games of a season’s worth of tape on each other. Anything that’s available has more than likely been put on display in some form or fashion. Who wins this rematch, in the coaches’ minds, will come down to the same things that determine the winner of every football game.

“At the end of the day it’s going to come down to those guys on the field, the strain they play with, probably who executes better,” Smart said. “The more things you do differently, sometimes the more you mess things up. You got to go out and execute.”

Sarkisian offered identical sentiments.

“At the end of the day our job is to put our players in the best position to be successful, whether that’s physically, mentally, schematically, whatever that looks like,” Sarkisian said. “That’s what we always kind of fall back to.”

The Longhorns and the Bulldogs will battle at 3 p.m. on Saturday in Atlanta’s Mercedes-Benz Stadium. Kickoff is scheduled for 3 p.m.

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Texas Longhorns in-season rematches of the past 30 years

1999: Defeated Nebraska in the regular season, 24-20. Lost to Nebraska in the Big 12 Championship, 22-6.

2001: Defeated Colorado in the regular season 41-7. Lost to Colorado in the Big 12 Championship, 39-37.

2005: Defeated Colorado in the regular season 42-17. Defeated Colorado in the Big 12 Championship, 70-3.

2018: Defeated Oklahoma in the regular season, 48-45. Lost to Oklahoma in the Big 12 Championship, 39-27.

2024: Lost to Georgia in the regular season, 30-15. Playing Georgia in the SEC Championship.