Ranking biggest Texas Longhorns storylines for Week 1 vs. Colorado State

Like it or not, optics matter. Now, more than ever in the era of a 12 team playoff. There have been Week 1 games in the recent past where Texas struggled for a quarter or two. Sometimes the score ended up being “appropriately” lopsided. Sometimes not.

Last year, Texas could only manage one Jonathan Brooks TD during the first half in the opener against Rice. The Horns pulled away in the third quarter, but the 37-10 score did spawn questions about the offense.

Losing to Colorado State doesn’t seem likely, but a good clean ‘crushing’ will do the Horns wonders heading into Michigan week and beyond.

Last season set a level of excellence for the Longhorns program that hasn’t been around since the Colt McCoy era. Texas was tough. It proved that in the Alabama game. Texas was fast. Texas attacked. All of the virtues Steve Sarkisian has been trying to instill since he arrived in Austin clicked. Sark knows the 2024 version can’t take a step backwards.

“It’s important that we re-establish our brand, our style of football. There’s a level of physicality with which we want to play the game. There’s a speed element, the speed with which we want to play the game. There’s an attacking manner in which we want to play the game, and there’s a football intellect, a football IQ that we want to play the game with. We have to re-establish that and that starts Saturday.” — Steve Sarkisian

CSU’s best player is WR Troy Horton. In his third year, the California native has 167 catches for 2,267 yards and 16 TDs in 24 games. Horton is fast and the Rams line him up all over the field.

Horton has been a human highlight reel since making his Colorado State debut during the 2022 season. The California native has recorded 167 receptions in 24 games for 2,267 yards. He has also been a scoring machine in that span, finding the end zone 16 times. Against the Longhorns, Horton has a prime opportunity to start the season strong, as he will be called on often. 

“With (Horton), first of all where is he lining up? They move him around a fair amount. Then having the ability to win at the top of the routes against him, he’s got good length. Then you got to get him on the ground. When he opens his stride up and gets into the open field he can run away from you. We might miss some tackles in Week 1. It’s okay sometimes to miss so long as three or four more tacklers are coming behind.” — Steve Sarkisian

It’s still Texas in August. Texas’ first home game of the season is always hot. But usually, the Longhorns play Week 1 at night. The game against Colorado State is in the afternoon sun during the hottest part of the day. The weather forecast calls for “cooler than normal” temperatures, but it will still be mid-90s and humid. Expect a lot of player rotation at all positions.

The more Arch plays, the better the game is going for Texas. Arch will probably play earlier than normal. Partly because Sark wants to get Manning more playing time and partly because of the heat.

While it’s important Quinn Ewers building chemistry with new WR weapons, it would be a huge bonus for Manning to get some time in too.