Dixieland Delight

Worked hard all week, got a little jingle. Texas crushes Alabama and their demons, making good on Sark’s vision for the football program and providing a win for all Longhorn fans to remember forever.

Am I dreaming? Am I dying?

Either way, I don’t mind at all.

Oh it feels so good, you just can’t help but crying.

~Sturgill Simpson

Since Saturday night and Texas’ 34-24 victory over Alabama in Tuscaloosa, I’ve wondered if I died and went to heaven. Was all of that real? Texas stomping on its demons in the form of revenge on Nick Saban and the Crimson Tide is the stuff of Longhorn fan fiction. Texas really gave Nick Saban his worst home loss while at Alabama and ended his 21-game winning streak at Bryant-Denny Stadium? Perhaps I’ve ascended onto some astral plane where all my midweek daydreams of future Longhorn success are my permanent reality. But in that kind of place, nights like Saturday would no longer be special, because it’s their rarity that makes them worth cherishing.

If it was real, then go ahead and pinch me, because there were times during the past 13 years that I (like most Texas fans) doubted whether nights like that were possible anymore. I sent a video to friends and family of the proudest Eyes of Texas I’ve ever sung and if you listen closely, you can hear my voice crack. I can’t help it, but I’m sure many others had the same experience. Despite my pregame confidence about the Longhorns’ prospects, I hadn’t allowed myself to imagine how a victory would really feel and the emotion and pride it would evoke.

Saturday was proof of the concept of Steve Sarkisian’s vision for the program. The Longhorns were a physical, attacking football team that never wavered from its core identity. Everything that Sarkisian said he wanted to be in his first press conference in January of 2021 was on display on Saturday night. The Longhorns not only were relentless (often throwing the ball on first down) and punishing (winning the turnover battle, getting five sacks and surrendering zero), but they also were disciplined (committing four penalties to Alabama’s 10). They were the more physical team and beat Alabama into submission. Just watch J’Tavion Sanders and Jordan Whittington seek out contact on critical first-down conversions late in the game, not to mention Texas getting the ball with seven minutes left and never giving it back as Jonathon Brooks iced the game. Texas’ offensive line was far more physical than the mighty Alabama defensive line, which has long been the great separator between the Tide and other SEC programs. As pundits and fans begged Sarkisian and Quinn Ewers to break up with the deep ball, they instead doubled down on it and threw it like an arrow into the Tide’s heart, first with Xavier Worthy and then with AD Mitchell. When Alabama made the game interesting and feelings of “here we go again” dread filled Texas fans’ minds, Sarkisian and Ewers threw it deep again. Ewers’ last touchdown, the 39-yard pass to Adonai Mitchell has the potential to be one of the defining plays of the Sarkisian era and up there with great plays in Texas football history, such as 53 Veer Pass, Roll Left and 4^th and 5.

Minutes before Mitchell’s dagger put the Tide away, Bryant-Denny had been coming unglued during a fourth quarter timeout as fans engaged in their tradition of belting out Dixieland Delight. The red LED lights flashed, pompoms waved, and my heart sank into my chest. I wondered how I’d be able to walk out of the stadium if Texas blew it. I thought back to the big blown leads in Sarkisian’s first season and how I’d had that feeling during the 2021 Red River Shootout as Texas blew a giant lead to Caleb Williams and the Sooners. I managed to walk out of the Cotton Bowl then, but my legs were weak and I wanted to throw up. I feared a repeat and what that would mean for Texas. While I was being filled with doubt, someone on Texas’ sideline caught AD Mitchell line dancing to (the band) Alabama’s hit about Tennessee truck sex (that Tide fans are so fond of) as it blasted through Bryant-Denny’s speakers. While Texas fans were letting gloom seep in, Sarkisian’s players were a far cry from the team that Sarkisian inherited. They were cool and calm, ready to win.

As it became clear that the Longhorns were going to do the unthinkable on the backs of Ewers and the ferocious defense, my section of mostly Texas fans lost total control of ourselves and our extremities. I high-fived or hugged every burnt orange-clad person in a 30-foot radius, while we all unleashed as many Nature Boy woos as our vocal cords would allow. I wanted to stay in that section at the top of Bryant-Denny Stadium forever, but I also wished I could be in the living room of every Texas fan I know and love across the country. Texas’ win brought out the sort of communal euphoria among Longhorn fans that is so fleeting in sports, but makes those walks through the desert worth it. I had hundreds of texts from friends, family and former coworkers who don’t even like Texas, but the one I’ll remember the most is from my mom who said that she “wanted this win so badly for you.” I responded that it wasn’t for me, it was for all of us. Because the win was for her, too. She was a freshman at UT in 1969; she was from a small South Texas town and was the first member of her family to go to college. DKR and Freddie Steinmark’s National Championship run bonded her to the school, the city and lifelong friends and gave her the courage to stick it out in a new place. It also was for my wife, who without batting an eye told me to go to the Alabama game when I was invited, then never complained throughout the whole weekend as both of our kids got sick while I was three states away. She let the Longhorns’ performance give her some deserved respite from the frustrating circumstances. It was for my friend who will have major surgery in a few weeks that will surely change things in his life going forward, but he walks into it with courage and instead of feeling sorry for himself, he let dozens of our friends celebrate him while watching the game together on Saturday night. It was for my in-laws and all of those who have lost someone they wish they could call after a Texas game, win or lose. It was for my best friends from college, and yours too, or all those buddies of yours who allow an event that occurs on 12 Saturdays each fall to keep them connected to people and a place and time that we are further removed from each year. It was for the Longhorn players who built the foundation to make wins like this possible, but never got to visit Canaan themselves - players like Sam Ehlinger, Roschon Johnson, Bijan Robinson and DeMarvion Overshown. It was for Herman holdovers like Jerrin Thompson, Jahdae Barron and T’Vondre Sweat, who now epitomize the sort of player development Texas had been lacking for over a decade. It was for Cedric Baxter, Anthony Hill and Ethan Burke, newcomers who trusted Sarkisian have already set a new standard at Texas in their first two games. It was for Quinn Ewers, who has grown up before Texas fans’ very eyes and hasn’t let unrealistic expectations crush him. He’s made himself more than a recruiting score and a haircut, he’s now the type of leader that his teammates and fans will follow anywhere. Like Ewers, the win was for all of those who embrace the hate and remind the legions of Texas haters that Horns always stay up.

The win was even for my dirtbag Aggie cousins, because even though there’s a painful element to watching your rival win, there are still glimmers of hope buried in the jealousy that one day it could be you feeling the same type of jubilee. It was for my dad, who, while not a Texas fan, says that fandom is both fun and heartbreaking, often in the same game and it’s the only experience that gives you that kind of cocktail together. He was the person who prioritized sports as a communal event in our house. Lastly, it was for my kids and my nephews and nieces, because even though my four-year-old still sees sports as a battle of good and evil like knights on a battlefield, wins like the one on Saturday are infectious and the types of experiences that create generational fandom.

I left the stadium in a daze, not caring about what came next or where I ended up. Like all Texas fans, I was basking in rarified air. As I drifted back to my car miles away from the stadium, I passed scores of sad Alabama students waiting to be admitted to the bars or clubs lining their main drag, all of them hoping a few shots of cheap bourbon, an obtained cell phone number, or a little grinding on the dance floor would soften the unfamiliar sting of defeat. I noticed the looks of confusion on their faces as they stood in line in silence. When you’re young and go to college at a football powerhouse, the school’s gridiron invincibility can further your own feelings of immortality.  I saw plenty of that confidence pregame as my friends and I were greeted with countless aggressive Horns Downs from Tide students outside tailgates on the way to the stadium. The same faces that had demonstrated youthful confidence only hours before now had the look of someone coming to terms with their mortality. It was an expression I remember seeing in myself, 13 years ago.

The win against Alabama reminded me of Texas’ 2008 45-35 win against Oklahoma in the Red River Shootout. In that game, Colt McCoy morphed into the player that Texas fans now remember him being and the second great era of the Mack Brown reign really began. A week later, Texas vaulted to number one in the polls and hosted a top 15 Missouri team at DKR. The crowd was eager to celebrate the Horns coming off such a monumental victory and the team fed off the electric atmosphere and proceeded to destroy the Tigers 56-31. I didn’t go to Texas at the time, but I happened to be in attendance that evening and it was the game that made me sure I wanted to be a part of nights like that in the future. This weekend, a 2-0 Wyoming Cowboys team will visit the 40 Acres and even though they aren’t 2008 Missouri¹, a similar crowd will await a triumphant Texas in Austin on Saturday night.

1. We only beat the old Alabama, Wyoming already beat the new Alabama. Therefore Wyoming is the new Georgia and we are screwed.