Texas showed plenty of progress against Alabama, but Bryce Young showed the Longhorns the loss

Texas had a chance to prove that all the talk in the offseason about changing the culture, improving after a 5-7 2021 season, and turning the program into a conference title competitor was for real on Saturday when the Alabama Crimson Tide traveled to Austin.

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And for most of the game, it seemed real. Steve Sarkisian’s offense moved the ball with success. Uncharacteristically, Nick Saban’s team showed little discipline, committing a whopping 15 penalties. Pete Kwiatkowski’s much maligned UT defense stifled Heisman Trophy winner Bryce Young and the Tide offense for much of the contest. With the game in question until the final minute, Texas showed concrete evidence of their offseason work.

STATISTICS: Alabama vs. Texas

Then on top of all that, they had a chance to win. An upset victory was in grasp. Young took it away for the Tide to take home.

Young, the first reigning Heisman winner to play at Darrell K Royal – Texas Memorial Stadium, surged in the fourth quarter. He piloted the Bama offense in two separate go-ahead scoring drives, including the one that set up Will Reichard’s game-winning 33-yard field goal with 10 seconds left. His performance sent most of a stadium-record 105,213 home wondering what could have been after a 20-19 Longhorn defeat.

The fact that Young was forced to lead a game-winning drive was a sign of progress for the Longhorns. Sarkisian, with a little righteous indignation, called out local and national media for almost universally picking Alabama to win and win easily. He viewed how his team battled versus the reigning SEC champion as a step in the right direction.

“As I told the team, I don’t look at this as ‘we lost,'” Sarkisian said postgame. “We ran out of time.” 

His team’s record may disagree with the Longhorns now 1-1, but signs of progress were everywhere on Saturday.

Save for Jase McClellan’s first-quarter 81-yard run, the Longhorns played stout defense in the game’s first three quarters. Young had only 77 yards through the air through 45 minutes. Take away McClellan’s mad dash, and Bama only tallied 103 total yards.

The Crimson Tide tried to help the Longhorns, too. Despite being known for his attention to detail, Saban’s team was penalized for the most times in one game since 2002.

And maybe more impressive than anything else, Sarkisian’s offense with Quinn Ewers leading the way looked like it would be able to give the star-studded Crimson Tide defense all it could handle.

That is, until Ewers was forced to leave the contest. A hit on Ewers at the end of the first quarter from Dallas Turner that drew a roughing the passer flag knocked him out of the game and thrust Hudson Card into action.

Card, who looked dinged up in his own right, battled and kept Texas in contention, indicative of the rest of the team. While that was happening, the defense kept Young and the rest of the Alabama offense in check. Between McClellan’s run and a touchdown pass to Jamhyr Gibbs in the fourth, the Longhorns forced Bama to punt on six consecutive drives.

“I give our players a lot of credit for having belief and trust in their coaches to execute the plan and go out and do it at a really high level,” Sarkisian said of the defense. “I thought we played tough. I thought we played physical. I thought we played hard.”

When the Longhorns trailed 17-16 late after Gibbs’ score, it presented Sarkisian’s team its best opportunity to show all the offseason talk and effort about finishing and overcoming adversity wasn’t just talk. It was a chance to show progress in an area that in 2021 was filled with failure.

Texas had to make a fourth-down stop in order to have a chance. They did with 3:55 left. Texas had to make a field goal to take a late lead. They did when Bert Auburn hit a 49-yard field goal, his third of the day, to make it 19-17.

If it weren’t for Young, Texas would have shown all the effort put forth toward finishing in late game situations was REALLY real. But Young is the Heisman winner for a reason, and once he eluded Ryan Watts’ corner blitz to put the Tide in position for the game-winning field goal, Texas’ hopes for victory were wiped away.

“Bryce Young, Houdini act getting out of the sack to scramble down the sideline and put them in field goal range,” Sarkisian said.

Was it a complete wash for Texas? Sarkisian didn’t believe so, and with good reason. His defense played its best game in over a year. His offense, even without Ewers, held its own against Turner, Will Anderson, and Jordan Battle. His team battled to the end.

“We believed in our locker room we could go win this game, and we played like a team that believed they could win this game,” Sarkisian said. “And we played like a team that thought they were going to win the game.”

All of those things were signs of true progress made in the offseason, and evidence all the talk about being an improved team was more than just talk. But it wasn’t enough progress to result in a win. After all, the Tide are No. 1 for a reason.

“I think we played Texas football today, but in the end it still stings,” Sarkisian said.