Rare Air

The Longhorns are Big 12 Champions and headed to the College Football Playoff. And I'm malfunctioning.

I couldn’t believe Texas was real. For me, Texas is the same big wonderful thing that the oceans and the highest mountains are.” ~Georgia O’Keeffe

This season of Texas football has almost been too much to comprehend. I’ve been unsure how to encapsulate the feelings of the last several days into an article that would fit inside your inboxes. It still doesn’t all feel real, and I’m not sure I’ve even let myself enjoy it yet. I keep reflecting on how there were so many times during the Longhorns' magical run to capture the Big 12 championship and playoff appearance where I opened the front door and allowed doom and gloom to come inside. I’m sure there was a part of me that refused to believe I was witnessing something special, so I curled into a fetal position and prepared for pain when something would happen that would cause me to think, “Here we go again.”

It happened when Alabama converted a late 3rd and 17 and again when Texas started slow against Wyoming and Kansas. After the loss to Oklahoma, I felt like I’d been hit by a truck of disappointment. When I watched the Longhorns blow a huge lead to Houston and lose Quinn Ewers, I assumed they were pretenders. I could hardly watch (or breathe) as Texas attempted to stave off Kansas State from the goal line." Help me in my unbelief, maybe just this once the other shoe won’t drop," my subconscious would say. Despite my doubt and the worries of the masses, the Longhorns answered the bell every time. Jonathon Brooks, Kelvin Banks, Anthony Hill, none of them care about the fan’s "woe is me" narrative, and we’re better for it.

It’s fitting that 'The Dead Man' himself, the Undertaker, was the WWE superstar who presented Quinn Ewers with the Most Valuable Player belt in Arlington. Every time the Longhorns looked finished this season, they got off the mat. However, it wasn’t until that cold night in Ames that I allowed myself to believe. Witnessing the team's celebration in the aftermath of that victory, embracing the pettiness of a significant win over a team that had talked trash, now rendered helpless, affirmed the kind of team I was watching—a champion.

Since the second half of Iowa State, Texas has played its best football of the season, probably of the past 15 years. It would have hurt not to see this group together one more time. Steve Sarkisian made a point that his team was going to control what they could control, and though winning the Big 12 was the goal, it would have hurt to miss the playoffs because of the way in which the team has played the past three games. Thankfully, we have more football coming, and I almost feel like we’re in a second offseason now, and all the hopes, jitters, and fears of July and August have returned.

The season has been redemptive, vindictive, frustrating, satisfying, terrifying, and empowering all at the same time. I guess those are the ingredients you find yourself simultaneously chewing on when your team’s football season still matters in November and December. The characters and the memories are so numerous I know I can’t do it all justice. I could write five more posts on T’Vondre Sweat and Byron Murphy and a million Steve Sarkisian appreciation posts. I probably owe Xavier Worthy a big apology for late night texts I sent about him after last year’s bowl game. I looked at the picture of the team’s reaction to the playoff announcement and saw the faces of so many players whom I refreshed message boards over years ago to see if they’d committed, and I was filled with so much pride in their journeys as athletes and that they’d chosen Texas.

Does it surprise you to learn I’m a grown man reading Longhorn message boards? I didn’t think so. So, it won’t surprise you to learn I’m trying to set up guardrails in my life so I won’t spend every waking moment of December obsessing over the Sugar Bowl. Yet the storylines of December, they overflow. There’s a transfer portal that is completely off its rocker and a College Football World still reeling from a controversial playoff exclusion.¹ As for Texas, we have an Alamo Bowl rematch in New Orleans against Washington and someone in Kalen DeBoer that might be Sark’s equal, if not his better. And I want to write a sequel about beating Alabama in September and how the events of last weekend show us it’s one of the more consequential regular-season wins of this century. What would beating Nick Saban two times in one season feel like? I’m not going there, yet. How many TV sets would tune into a Texas and Michigan national championship? I think of the Oklahoma and Ohio State fans, kindred spirits really, who would watch that game together in horror as they hold one another and sob. Still, I have to stop and slow down to breathe. They tell you to act like you’ve been there before, and I would if I could, but I haven’t for 14 years. Like Guy Pearce in Memento, I feel the need to write out the facts of the season just to try and get a handle on it all.

-Texas has played its last season in the Big 12.

-Texas is joining the SEC next season.

-Texas beat Alabama by double digits in Tuscaloosa.

-Texas won its fourth Big 12 Title.

-Texas is going to the College Football Playoff.

-Texas has the chance to play for a National Championship.

Play it cool, man.

From there, you can fill in the color around the points, like how Texas got the last laugh on all its former conference mates and booed Brett Yormark back to the circus. How about how the Longhorns have already justified the Aggies' drowned-out pleas not to give Texas a key to the SEC’s gates? The conference championship and playoff ticket serve as proof that Texas has the right players and process in place, but more importantly, that they’ve built the right program thanks to Steve Sarkisian and the people who hired him and stuck with him.

With Sark and these players at the helm, it feels like the start of something more than the culmination, but these years don’t come around often. In getting to write those facts listed above, I’m reminded of the rare air that Longhorn fans are breathing. This season has been special, unforgettable, and the kind of year that Texas fans have dreamed about for a long time. I’d do well to remind myself of that several times in December when I’m obsessing about whether they’ll defeat Washington or go on to win a national championship. I’m reminded that more games with high stakes will allow me to have more memories with people I love who also like to wear burnt orange. Whether agony, ecstasy, or some combination await us in the next month, we’ll be in it together. We’re standing on the cherry that’s fixed atop the proverbial sundae, let’s try to enjoy the view.

1. Controversial inclusions or exclusions in the national championship are as much a part of college football as marching bands are. This is the same sport that once had newspapers voting on national champions, then transitioned to computers. Now we have a room full of part timers deciding the fate of our teams. The rubric to enter the playoff itself has always been shifting sand, and I am sure that while today Florida State got the short end of the stick, one day they’ll be the team that benefits from another university's misfortune. Texas has seen both sides of the coin. In 2008, Texas was penalized for a 10-point victory over Oklahoma; in 2023, they were rewarded for a 10-point victory over Alabama. So it goes.