It’s finally game week in Austin.
Texas has a big task in front of them with having to take on the No. 23 ranked Louisiana Ragin’ Cajuns in their season opener.
The Longhorns had a full offseason under a new coaching staff to prepare for their tough first half of the schedule, and to just simply just to train in general as last season the offseason was decimated by COVID-19. However, just because Texas feels as if they are prepared for this matchup, does not mean that it will be a walk in the park by any means. It’s college football, anything can happen.
There is added pressure for Texas to succeed this season for a multitude of reasons. The first being the fact that they hired arguably the best offensive mind in college football in Steve Sarkisian to help them contend, and also the fact that the Longhorns are slated to make the move to the SEC conference in the near future. The target on their back is as big as its ever been.
All the questions of whether Texas is back or not will not be determined by a single game, but it could be a great indicator as to how this era will be different from the last.
The Longhorns got off to a rough start under Tom Herman when they lost to Maryland. Many of the issues we saw in his opening game became a constant throughout the Herman era as the team struggled with penalties and were unable to overcome a slow start.
Granted, this is obviously a much different team, but there are areas of concern that have emerged and could be prevalent in the Week 1 matchup for Texas.
Let’s take a look at some potential issues that could potentially get the Sarkisian era off to a Herman-like start.