The Good Old Days

Texas gives Baylor a farewell bludgeoning in Waco and their upcoming matchup with Kansas can show how far the Longhorns have come under Steve Sarkisian.

“I wish there was a way to know you're in the good old days before you've actually left them.”

~Andy Bernard in The Office series finale 

It was as if nothing had ever changed: Baylor covered parts of their own stands with giant tarps, while the Longhorns bludgeoned the Bears in their final matchup as conference-mates. Texas started their farewell tour of the Big 12 on a warpath like they were Comanche raiders pillaging their enemies village under a bright Summer moon. Quinn Ewers came through on the road again and showed off his new wheels in the process; Jonathon Brooks ran through every green clad defender in his way, while J’Tavion Sanders jumped over them; and Texas’ offensive and defensive lines showed why the floor for this Longhorns team is so high. It’s hard to upset a team that is dominant in the trenches, which is why Alabama and Georgia never lose to unranked teams. Texas might not have their level of line play yet, but they’re sure doing a very good impression of them so far. The win over Baylor was the exact kind of take-no-prisoners victory over a conference foe that Texas fans have been wanting from their team for years, especially since the Longhorns announced their move to the SEC. Texas kept Baylor out of the endzone, despite the Bears’ four trips inside the redzone (mostly coming from Texas’ special teams’ blunders, the one smudge on the Longhorns’ otherwise brilliant performance).

When it was all said and done, there were no moral victories for the Bears and the Horns never allowed them to come up for air once. Don’t get me wrong, Baylor is a bad football team this year, but that hasn’t stopped past Texas teams from playing down to their competition. Tom Herman would’ve somehow found a way to make it a one score game, and even past Steve Sarkisian teams would have left the door cracked a few times so the Bears could wiggle their way in. Not on Saturday. Texas looked like the team I’ve been trying to will into existence with my writing for the last three years. There’s also the fact that Steve Sarkisian is 11-3 in his last 14 games at Texas, which is a stretch that most Texas fans would have killed for during the past decade plus. If the good old days are here again, then what do I do? What’s left for me to say?

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Out of pure necessity, I started Dance with Who Brung Ya the summer before Steve Sarkisian’s first season at Texas. I needed somewhere to channel my hopeful energy about the Longhorns. For the first time in years, belief was gushing from me, and it didn’t seem to be a house of cards or a form of Stockholm Syndrome. Before Sark arrived, Sam Ehlinger had helped me love the Longhorns again, but it was still a slog to believe in the program as a whole for reasons despite #11. I wouldn’t have wanted to or been able to write this weekly* article in the seven or eight seasons prior to Sark’s arrival in Austin. It was far too much gloom and a whole lot of doom back then, and the brief glimpses of hope were quickly stomped out. Starting this during late Mack Brown’s era would’ve been like a beat reporter moving to write about Rome months before it collapsed. A weekly article about Charlie Strong would have read too much like The Onion, and Tom Herman was like the kids’ mom’s new boyfriend in a coming-of-age drama who has red flags written all over him. It never crossed my mind to write about any of those regimes. But, when Sark arrived, I felt like Ricky Bobby in Talladega Nights being interviewed for the first time: “I don’t know what to do with my hands.” 

Sark has a great story; he’s easy to root for; he doesn’t seem like he’s trying to sell you anything while he simultaneously steals your wallet; and he plays aesthetically pleasing football. I was so excited, I had to write. Plus, I like to write, and I always want to write more than I do. Then there’s the fact that I think about Texas football and writing throughout the day, pretty much every single day, so voila! One of my mentors says there’s no greater gift than to introduce your friends to your friends, so I took that advice and applied it to the two passions that have continually tortured me.

The Sarkisian era hasn’t been without pain or without struggle. But if anything, that’s allowed me to write better, write more, and write from a place that comes more naturally. There also is the fact that Sarkisian has continually sprinkled positive indicators into his program amidst the hardships: there were the first glimpses of what a Sark offense could be at the beginning of 2021 behind Xavier Worthy’s emergence, then there were the commitments of Quinn Ewers and the historic 2022 offensive line class, then players like Roschon Johnson and Bijan Robinson stuck around in the era of the transfer portal, the Manning family gave Sarkisian their blessing and then there was the 49-0 demolition of Oklahoma in last year’s Red River Shootout. Far before 2023’s 4-0 start and win over Alabama, the reasons for hope have always outweighed the reasons for doubt.

Still, the vast majority of fanhood is spent in a place of longing - longing for what is unobtainable or for the brief high of seeing your team lift a trophy, but all of that probably makes up less than one percent of the fans’ experience. I’ve written for three seasons about what it will take to get Texas back to the promised land; spent time thanking those who have helped with the arduous journey; and lamented the struggles along the way. But now, if Texas is on the verge of a stay in that ephemeral one percent, can I sit back and just enjoy it? Where do I even begin? And what becomes of the wishful fan when his team is at the edge of greatness?¹

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Texas hosts Kansas in Austin this Saturday, a ranked matchup between two undefeated teams, but readers will know that’s a far cry from where the two programs were the last time they met in Austin. Texas was in the middle of a historic losing streak and Kansas still was viewed as one of the worst programs in major college football. When Lance Leipold’s team went on to beat the Longhorns, it was as though Texas had gotten the coaching hire wrong yet again. It was an embarrassing loss for Texas players, coaches and fans, even if it was made slightly better later because of the positive trajectory of Leipold and quarterback Jalon Daniels. The loss showed Texas just how far away they really were as a program and what needed to be done to change things. Steve Sarkisian said earlier this week that he was now “glad it happened,” because the loss “exposed warts in the program that needed to be removed.”

I’ve been reading my four-year-old son The Chronicles of Narnia by CS Lewis at night, and I thought of the Texas football program and the fans when remembering the fifth book, The Voyage of the Dawn Treader. Don’t be surprised, everything reminds me of Texas football. In the novel, a boy named Eustace’s greed becomes his undoing and the “greedy, dragonish thoughts in his heart,” cause him to “become a dragon himself." Nothing can save him or turn Eustace back into a boy until he finally meets Aslan the lion, the ruler of Narnia. To save Eustace, Aslan must tear the dragon flesh off the boy with his claws. Once he’s restored, Eustace says:

. . . the very first tear he made was so deep that I thought it had gone right into my heart. And when he began pulling the skin off, it hurt worse than anything I've ever felt. The only thing that made me able to bear it was just the pleasure of feeling the stuff peel off. You know - if you've ever picked the scab off a sore place. It hurts like billy-oh, but it is such fun to see it coming away.

Finally, the Longhorns and their fans can start to look back at those low points and feel the same way.

Texas 48 Kansas 20²

1. This article will self destruct and be wiped from all corners of the internet if Texas loses to the Jayhawks.

2. Kansas has an excellent quarterback and offense under Daniels and Leipold, but it’s a very similar defense to the one that Texas beat 55-14 in Lawrence last year while rushing for 427 yards.