Texas' 2024 season gets an A, but falls painfully short of an A+

The Texas Longhorns get an “A” grade for the 2024 season, one in which they defeated the defending national champions, all but one of their SEC opponents, three historic rivals, and two other College Football Playoff teams on the way to a second-straight semifinal appearance.

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That doesn’t make falling short of an A+ any less painful.

Texas athletics director Chris Del Conte has said in the past he wants every Longhorn sport to be top 10 in the country and competing for national championships. I believe Texas has undoubtedly met that standard in football over the past two seasons under Steve Sarkisian.

Meeting that standard is difficult, which is why accomplishing it merits more than just a passing grade. As much as Texas fans like to clown the person who made the term infamous on the 40 Acres, winning is hard. Heck, Sarkisian has said it a time or two in his tenure.

Winning the SEC is hard. Defeating the ACC champion is hard. Defeating the Big 12 champion in the Peach Bowl is hard.

So rewarding a team that went through its first Southeastern Conference schedule with one blemish, fell three points short of back-to-back conference titles, earned a spot in the final four in a second consecutive season, and saw its campaign end in a memorable for all the wrong reasons way at the hands of the eventual national champion with an “A” makes total sense. The 2024 season is something to be celebrated.

Del Conte thought as much, agreeing to add another year to Sarkisian’s contract in spite of reported NFL interest.

But there’s only one way to earn an A+ at Texas.

And Texas only claims four A+’s in its history (though if it so desired, it could tack on 1914, 1941, 1968, 1977, and 1981. I’m not clamoring for that).

Why did Texas get an A in my book?

It beat its three historic rivals — Oklahoma, Arkansas, and Texas A&M– in convincing fashion. Quinn Ewers earned an esteemed place in Texas history for his performances in the Cotton Bowl, his coup de grace for the Sooners being a 34-3 win where he passed for a score and ran for a touchdown in the game’s waning moments.

The Longhorns battled for a road win in the SEC against a game Arkansas team that loathes Texas with the fury of 1000 Tyson Chicken slaughterhouses.

Then, in the face of one of the most vicious environments ever for a college football game, the Longhorns silenced the Aggies in a contest that was not as close as the final 17-7 score.

Beating rivals is a key part of college football and remains so even in the era of the 12-team playoff. But it’s not the be-all and end-all of the sport like it was in the not-too-distant past. Nor is winning your conference, something Texas aspired to achieve but failed to accomplish this year thanks to a Georgia team that notched two very different looking victories over the Longhorns.

Season success is more defined by College Football Playoff success at this point 11 years into the CFP era. Oregon finished with the best record in college football at 13-1 and won its conference. The Ducks were shot down in the Rose Bowl. A successful season, to be sure, but probably not an “A” season given the effort Dan Lanning and Phil Knight have put into creating a Pacific Northwest powerhouse.

To win two games, one in the Longhorns’ home stadium and the other in back-from-the-brink fashion, put Texas in true contention to win a title. But they fell short of actually playing for it because of a goal-line snafu emblematic of season-long problems in that aspect of the game.

I’ll hear quibbles about an A, this is a subjective exercise of course. And how it may be tough to ascribe an “A” to a team that lost three games.

But that’s life in the 12-team playoff, and that’ll be accentuated when the field likely eventually expands. Ohio State became the third national champion since V-J Day in 1945 to end the season with two losses, joining 1960 Minnesota and 2007 LSU. If Texas had won it all, it would have held the trophy with two losses as well.

The emphasis on full-season perfection isn’t there like it was in 2005, when a mid-season loss against an Oklahoma State team that finished 4-7 could have jeopardized Texas’ place not only in the Big 12 title game, but also the Rose Bowl. Texas lost to a team twice this year and was in the hunt. You are a product of your time; we’re just in year one of that time.

The product put on the field by Sarkisian and company featured an elite defense, a quality offense, and award-winning players who will find deserved glory, opportunity, and riches in the NFL. Texas was told it wouldn’t contend for anything in the SEC but won almost everything the conference could have asked for.

Almost is the key word there.

It’s Sarkisian’s second “A” at Texas, joining 2023. I gave 2022 a “B-.” 2021 earned a good old fashioned “F.”

Sarkisian has Texas playing at an elite level, but not at an “A+” level quite yet.

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The only way to get there as a head coach at Texas? Finish the year at the top of your class.