The Texas Longhorns and Georgia Bulldogs play next season. The game is billed as one of the most important games of the 2024 football season.
While important, the game might not have the same defining quality last year’s win over the Alabama had for Texas. It’s more similar to an earlier matchup with the Tide.
The regular season matchup with Georgia provides a game to measure where Texas is for the season. It’s the type of game that Alabama was in 2022. Despite losing starting quarterback Quinn Ewers to injury early, it took a late field goal for the Tide to beat the carefree Longhorns, 20-19.
Texas isn’t supposed to beat Georgia, and that’s what makes the Longhorns dangerous in the matchup. It is a low risk, high reward contest that won’t define the squad.
We recently looked at why Texas doesn’t have to pull out all the stops to beat Georgia in Austin. There are much bigger games on the horizon.
The list of priorities starts with a big rivalry game in Dallas. Texas can ill afford to lose back-to-back matchups to Oklahoma. At this point in both programs’ trajectory, that’s inexcusable for the program.
The Longhorns will likely have to win three postseason games to win a national title, two of which will likely involve beating Georgia, Ohio State or Oregon. There are bigger games for which to save your best play calls than a home game in October.
Texas doesn’t have to break out the fireworks against Georgia. It can simply see how it measures up athletically and evaluate how the Bulldogs respond to various concepts. It can play carefree which tends to be where athletes can perform at their best.
The Longhorns should be underdogs against the Bulldogs, but they shouldn’t have it any other way. Head coach Steve Sarkisian and company can use it to become a better football team for the stretch run of the season.