College Football

Texas is clearly on the rise, despite disappointing finish

Updated Jan. 3, 2024 10:04 p.m. ET

NEW ORLEANS — Texas was one second away from playing for a national championship. All Quinn Ewers had to do was find one of his many talented receivers in the end zone, and boom, the Longhorns would win the Sugar Bowl.

The Superdome was rocking. Fans — both cheering for Texas and Washington — could feel it. Something big was about to happen.

Ewers dropped back and lobbed a ball to Adonai Mitchell — who already caught a touchdown earlier in the game — in the right corner. But Washington cornerback Elijah Jackson broke up the pass to clinch a 37-31 victory for his team and a date with Michigan in Houston in Monday's national championship game.

As the Huskies rushed the field in jubilation, heartbroken Longhorns dropped to their knees on the turf. "Hook ‘Em," the costumed Texas mascot, tried to console Ewers, but the quarterback hung his head as he exited the field.

While this team would have done anything to get those last few plays back, there is a silver lining. In a short period of time, head coach Steve Sarkisian seems to have created a program that can not only bounce back from a disappointment like this, but can keep building and competing at the highest levels for years to come. You could say Texas is "back," and these days that's more of a reality than a joke.

"These guys never lost faith," a dejected Sarkisian said afterward. "They believed that we were going to win that game. And it was just how. The biggest thing was well, how are we going to do it? We know we're going to, it's just how? And unfortunately, we came up short."

That kind of belief didn't exist in many of the previous Texas teams of the past 14 years. Ever since 2009 — the last time the Horns won the Big 12 and played for a national championship — the culture hadn't been sustainable. After Mack Brown resigned in 2013, the program tried out coaches Charlie Strong and Tom Herman with the hope they could bring Texas back to the upper echelon of the sport. It wasn't until athletics director Chris Del Donte hired Sarkisian that the situation in Austin finally started to turn.

When Sarkisian interviewed for the job in late 2020, he laid out a long-term plan to resurrect the Longhorns. He told Del Conte and UT president Jay Hartzell that it would take time — he had to transform the roster by adding big linemen and lightning-fast playmakers through recruiting, and create a lasting culture. Those things don't happen overnight.

Michael Penix Jr. and No. 2 Washington hold off No. 3 Texas

And they didn't — in 2021, Sarkisian's first year, Texas went 5-7. In 2022, it went 8-5. Going 12-2, winning the Big 12 title and playing in the program's first-ever College Football Playoff in 2023 were accomplishments that were actually ahead of schedule.

Players say that they truly started buying in and believing in Sarkisian's methods after a close 20-19 loss to Alabama at home in 2022. If they could compete with a dynasty program like that, maybe Sarkisian was onto something. Texas went on to beat the Crimson Tide in Tuscaloosa a year later.

"At first, I don't think myself and the guys understood the message," said defensive lineman Byron Murphy, who scored a touchdown against Washington. "But as we were starting to get to know him more and more, being around him more every day, and training with him, [that] made us understand his message, where he was coming from. And he instilled that in us these past three years, he turned it around with us, and we're here."

As the Horns enter the offseason, they do so with exciting changes ahead. This is the year they move to the SEC. Winning the conference will arguably become more challenging, especially in their debut season when Texas plays Georgia, Florida and Texas A&M, not to mention a highly anticipated non-conference game against Michigan in Ann Arbor in early September. But at least the CFP will expand from four teams to 12.

Ewers has yet to say whether he is returning for another year. And even though the two quarterbacks are friends and roommates before games, Arch Manning is waiting in the wings.

Texas will lose stars like Mitchell and Xavier Worthy, as well as the defensive line tandem of T'Vondre Sweat and Murphy. But everyone saw what kind of depth this team already has when running back Jonathon Brooks tore his ACL, and CJ Baxter and Jaydon Blue stepped up.

Plus, because of how Sarkisian has been recruiting — his 2023 and ‘24 classes were ranked No. 3 in the country by 247 Sports — Texas is becoming one of those places that can handle losing NFL-caliber guys. That's what Alabama and Georgia have been doing for years. And who better to install that kind of mindset than a coach who has a history of coaching in the SEC and every resource at his disposal? Before being hired to coach the Longhorns, Sarkisian coached for Nick Saban two different times and won a national title in the process. That kind of experience can only be beneficial.

In addition to the injection of talent, Longhorns players will tell you how tight-knit they are. While outsiders may assume all football teams are bonded, that wasn't always the case at Texas. But Sarkisian made that a point of emphasis from the moment he stepped onto campus. He introduced something called "Culture Wednesdays" and talks about it often. Every week, players are encouraged to open up and be vulnerable with their teammates in meetings. Sarkisian hoped this would allow each player to get to know his teammates in a meaningful way that would form lasting relationships.

The best part is, he and his coaching staff participate. Sarkisian has opened up about his story, including details of his alcoholism that got him fired from USC. In doing so, players feel closer to their coaches and vice versa.

So when Sarkisian was asked how he can maintain this level of success moving forward and build up the program with the hope of playing for and winning national championships in the future, it was easy for him to answer. The work is already in progress.

"That doesn't just happen, right?" Sarkisian said. "It took 12 months of hard work. We have to make sure that complacency doesn't set in. We have got to be mindful of that. And then we go right back to the foundation of building the team, whether it's winter conditioning, spring ball, summer workouts, training camp, Culture Wednesdays, all the things that we do. Make sure that we still handle our business in our community because I think that you have to rebuild the character each year of your team. And we have to be mindful that it doesn't just happen. It takes hard work.

"The value of that hard work that we put in is the reason that we're in this position. So we're going to have to get right back to it again."

Laken Litman covers college football, college basketball and soccer for FOX Sports. She previously wrote for Sports Illustrated, USA Today and The Indianapolis Star. She is the author of "Strong Like a Woman," published in spring 2022 to mark the 50th anniversary of Title IX. Follow her on Twitter @LakenLitman.