Texas feels ‘sting’ of losing SEC title but still optimistic about winning the national championship
ATLANTA (AP) — Texas lost the SEC title Saturday but the Longhorns say it would be a mistake to count them out of the College Football Playoff or winning the national championship.
At least that’s the way coach Steve Sarkisian sees it. Texas fans can’t even fathom being left out of the playoff.
“The beauty for us is this stings, it’s hard, but we get a chance to regroup in a couple weeks and get into the College Football Playoff and go compete for a national championship,” Sarkisian said after the Longhorns’ 22-19 overtime loss to Georgia in the Southeastern Conference championship game.
Texas will find out who and where it will play when the final CFP rankings for the 12-team field are announced Sunday.
“I think we’re plenty good enough to go win” it all, Sarkisian said, “but we’re going to need to get healthy so we can put our best foot forward to make that happen.”
One reason the the Longhorns are so confident after the setback is they know they had opportunities to put Georgia away in the first half and statistically dominated the Bulldogs. Texas stopped itself throughout the game with penalties (11 for 94 yards) that stalled scoring drives and negated turnovers they created.
“The penalties were an issue in the first half where we stalled out on some things and in some third-and-longs and whatnot,” Sarkisian said. “Our defense played a fantastic first half. I think it was like 260 yards to 54. But the score was 6-3.
“Clearly we weren’t capitalizing on the opportunities we had.”
Texas came into Saturday’s rematch with Georgia at No. 2 in the CFP rankings and the Longhorns were looking to avenge their only loss of the season. Instead, they left Mercedes-Benz Stadium with a second loss to the Bulldogs.
The Bulldogs scored 19 second-half points behind backup quarterback Gunner Stockton after starter Carson Beck was injured on the last play of the first half and could not return. Beck did return for the final play, handing the ball to Trevor Etienne who scored the winning touchdown on a 4-yard run.
The Longhorns were disappointed in themselves after letting a game slip away that they could have won but they remain optimistic about their championship hopes.
Cornerback Jahdae Barron said the primary reason for the positive outlook is Sarkisian.
Barron said the Longhorns are in a good place mentally “just because of the level of the culture that ‘Sark’ created here. Knowing we still in it, we still have (the) opportunity to make things right.
“It can’t just be poor me’s for the next two weeks,” Barron added. “You got to get back to work. We’ll fix what we need to fix.”
Texas missed a chances to have a bye week and now will have to win an additional game to capture the title. Quarterback Quinn Ewers isn’t concerned.
“We’re built for the moments we’re going into,” Ewers said. “I have no doubt each and every guy in that room believes the same thing I’m saying right now. I said it earlier this season, it’s 10% what happens, 90% how you react to it.
“I think we do a good job of handling adversity.”
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