Steve Sarkisian finally made it over to a triumphant corner of Bryant-Denny Stadium and thrust both hands into the air to the sound of thunderous applause and that famous Hook ‘em Horns hand sign to those in front of him. It’s a sight people might want to get used to seeing around these parts. He was joining the No. 11-ranked Texas team he had just coached to a defining 34–24 victory against No. 3 Alabama. As they celebrated, they yelled three letters that are all-too-familiar to the rest of the 100,000 people on hand (although many of those in Crimson had filed for the exits): “S-E-C.”
The significance of what they did here is not lost on Sarkisian. Texas did what no team has done in this stadium in the previous 21 tries, and they’re only the sixth team to win here since Saban got the program rolling in 2008. They also broke Alabama’s 57-game nonconference win streak that dated back to 2007. Texas will enter college sports’ biggest and baddest conference next year, at which point this matchup will have SEC title significance. But for now, it was the return meeting to last year’s near-upset and the biggest nonconference matchup on the slate, and it bagged the bragging rights to buoy the rest of this Longhorn campaign if they can continue this momentary success.
“A lot of people walk in the stadium and the mystique of Alabama—they’re beat before the ball gets kicked off,” Sarkisian said. “I had to make sure that our players understood that we're good enough to come in here and win. But the moment doubt creeps in, that's when you can start making the mistakes that can get you beat. And so I wanted to be clear with our players that Hey, it's not about we fear them. We do respect that team. But we were good enough to come here and win if we played capable enough to do it, and we played that style tonight.”
