Texas solidifies status as one of the top teams in the nation in win over Texas Tech

The one main question the Longhorns sought to answer in its matchup with the Texas Tech Red Raiders was whether they would be playing in the Big 12 Championship in Arlington next Saturday. They didn’t want to leave their place in the title game during their last Big 12 season up to the fortunes of others as they have in recent years.

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During a 57-7 drubbing of the Red Raiders, the Longhorns answered that question with a resounding yes. And in the process, Steve Sarkisian’s program made declarations not only to the league, but college football at large in the process.

Texas dominated TTU in a way top teams tend to versus middle-of-the-pack programs in the same league. Sarkisian’s offense posted 528 yards with 302 of them on the ground. Pete Kwiatkowski’s defense limited the Raiders to 198 total yards and turned them over three times. Even Jeff Banks’ special teams added to the point total via five Bert Auburn field goals and a Keilan Robinson kickoff returned for a touchdown.

The 50-point victory made a statement to the league, including its commissioner. Brett Yormark spoke to a Red Raider crowd in August and encouraged Tech head coach Joey McGuire to “take care of business.”

Big 12 Commissioner Brett Yormark today: “Coach (Joey McGuire), I’m not going to put any pressure on you, but I’m going to be in Austin on Thanksgiving. And you better take care of business like you did right here in Lubbock last year.” pic.twitter.com/KRDohHn288

— Joe Cook (@josephcook89) August 23, 2023

In the program’s current state, the Longhorns have the capability to do something about those outbursts. Texas won eight of its nine conference games in 2023 and set up the opportunity for Yormark to hand them the Big 12 trophy on December 2. They head north on IH-35 as the No. 1 seed in the conference and will be wearing home uniforms in Arlington on Saturday.

Previous Texas teams haven’t made that statement. But this one can, and has. And it has an opportunity to make an even louder statement come Saturday morning in the Big 12 title game.

“We have to embrace that,” Sarkisian said. “We’re the University of Texas. We can’t continue to sit back and take punches from everybody and not fight back. I think that our team has adopted that. When you poke the bear, that should strike up some things down inside of us to not just play good… but in our preparation.”

The 11-1 record that includes a 10-point win at Alabama has Texas situated as a leading contender for one of the four places in the College Football Playoff. There’s a chance the Longhorns won’t be able to avenge their lone loss to Oklahoma depending on Saturday’s results, but the Alabama win — one Sarkisian called the best in the country — has Texas in a position it hasn’t been in since 2009.

If Texas wins versus the No. 2 team in the Big 12, it will have all the hallmarks of a Playoff team with a 12-1 record, a conference title, and a signature out-of-conference win.

Unlike with the Big 12 title race, Texas doesn’t hold all the cards when it comes to the Playoffs. The selection committee has ranked Oregon ahead of the Longhorns in every single release. But now, Texas has a win over a common opponent with the Ducks. And the Horns’ 50-point margin is a lot more than the eight Oregon defeated TTU by in Lubbock.

“I don’t know from a College Football Playoff perspective what that looks like,” Sarkisian said, electing to wait until next week to have a definitive statement.

But it is a Playoff contender. It’s a championship contender. The ability to contend for championships is what drew Sarkisian to Austin in the first place while he was the Alabama offensive coordinator.

“I didn’t accept this job just to be a head coach again,” Sarkisian said. “I felt like at that point in my career I knew I would be one again, but I took this job because I felt like we could be champions here and we could win championships year after year and whatever that would look like.”

Texas has an opportunity to win a championship this Saturday and strengthen its already-strong claim as one of the top programs in the country and one worthy of Playoff contention. Even in postgame, Sarkisian mentioned there’s one step remaining before it can get to that point, but it’s a step it can now take because of a performance typically seen from Playoff contenders.

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“Like I told the team downstairs, we’re not done,” Sarkisian said. “We’ve got one more. As much as this feels like a tremendous celebration, which it is to earn an opportunity to play for a Big 12 championship, we’ve got one more game next Saturday.”