Sports blog information from USA TODAY.
According to a few CBS Sports analysts, Texas and Steve Sarkisian will have a rough start to the 2021 college football season.
Steve Sarkisian’s tenure at Texas won’t get off to a hot start according to a few CBS Sports analysts. Continue reading “CBS Sports predicts Texas will be upset by two nonconference opponents”
ESPN announced the kickoff time for Texas’ premier nonconference game against Arkansas. Additionally, TX/OU will be on ABC/ESPN this season.
ESPN announced the kickoff time for Texas’ premier nonconference game against Arkansas on Tuesday.
The Longhorns and Razorbacks will get underway at 6 p.m. CST and be televised on ESPN. The old Southwest Conference rivals are meeting in Fayetteville for the first time since 2004 and wrapping up a home and home series that begun in 2008.
Additionally, Sept. 9’s Red River Shootout was announced to be on ABC/ESPN this season, not Fox. Texas and Oklahoma have played at the Cotton Bowl in Dallas since 1932 but will be back on the ESPN airwaves for the first time since 2017.
The 2018 Big 12 Championship featured on ESPN but was played at AT&T Stadium in Arlington, Texas.
ESPN networks will welcome some of the biggest rivalries in the sport, including No. 21 Texas at Arkansas on Saturday, Sept. 11 at 7 p.m. on ESPN. No. 3 Oklahoma will be showcased in its two top rivalry games on ESPN networks this fall. The fifth-longest rivalry in college football history, the Red River Showdown against the Longhorns is set for Saturday, Oct. 9 in Dallas.
Competing against the Texas-Arkansas matchup will be Michigan-Washington on ABC. The Big Ten/Pac-12 matchup will kickoff 30 minutes later.
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247Sports predicted where each Big 12 team will pick up their first loss. For UT, the second game of the year against Arkansas was the pick.
Losses are inevitable in college football unless you are Alabama, Clemson, or Ohio State.
No Big 12 team has gone undefeated since Texas won the national championship against USC in 2005. Oklahoma nearly pulled it off with Baker Mayfield in 2017 but lost to Georgia in the Rose Bowl.
247Sports predicted where each team in the Big 12 will pick up their first loss. For Texas, the second game of the year against Arkansas was the pick.
There’s not a lot of reason right now to doubt that Steve Sarkisian can’t get the job done at Texas. That being said, it’s not going to be an overnight job. It’s going to take the former Alabama offensive coordinator some time to adjust and get things going and a road test into SEC territory is going to be one of the toughest tests Sarkisian goes through in his first year. Arkansas appears to be going in the right direction under Sam Pittman right now and has a great chance to get a huge win over Texas before Sarkisian establishes himself.
Picking up a loss to Arkansas would not be surprising at all. Arkansas has been the bottom dwellers of the SEC for a few years now but overperformed in Sam Pittman’s first year. Three losses came by a combined eight points.
Mix in a hostile crowd at 100% capacity gearing up for an old Southwest Conference rivalry and Texas will definitely be on upset alert.
Even with an early loss to Arkansas, 247Sports goes on to predict Texas will win the Red River Shootout against Oklahoma. At first thought, this would be a Tom Herman special. Losing to an inferior team as a favorite, only to go on and beat one of the best Oklahoma teams in over a decade.
The Sooners will be the pick to win the Big 12 and might actually go unbeaten. But the Texas game with a new head coach in charge will likely be the toughest test they face in the first six weeks and perhaps all season. Away from home, Oklahoma might get tripped up.
Trading an early-season loss for a guaranteed win in Dallas is usually a trade most people would take. However, Sarkisian needs to make it through nonconference play without a loss to get his tenure rolling. Taking your chances against Oklahoma would be worth the risk.
ESPN projects UT will get their rematch against LSU in the Texas Bowl. It will be the second year in a row the two schools face each other.
Despite not looking their greatest this season, the Texas Longhorns have pulled off three consecutive victories against Baylor, Oklahoma State, and West Virginia.
Head coach Tom Herman has been able to turn the season around after starting 0-2 in conference play.
While a Big 12 championship appearance is still not out of the question, Texas still has two difficult matchups in Iowa State and Kansas State after facing Kansas in two weeks. Because of this, ESPN’s bowl projections still do not have the Longhorns in a top tier bowl game.
Instead, ESPN projects Texas will finally get their rematch against the LSU Tigers in the Texas Bowl. The Tigers beat the Longhorns in Austin 45-38 in one of the games of the seasons in 2019. The two teams were scheduled to face each other in Sept. at LSU, but COVID-19 had other ideas.
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The Tigers have had a rough beginning to their 2020 season. Trying to replace over 20 starters from their national championship roster, the turnover has caused struggles for head coach Ed Orgeron. Joe Burrow, Justin Jefferson, and Ja’Marr Chase were all players who tore up Texas and are no longer with the program.
LSU currently sits at 2-3 with wins over Vanderbilt and South Carolina. The losses have come against Mississippi State, Missouri, and Auburn.
ESPN throws in a second projection, saying Texas will face another SEC opponent in Arkansas. Old Southwest Conference rivals, if the Longhorns and Razorbacks face each other, it would be a tune-up game for 2021’s matchup in Fayetteville.
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Texas still has an opportunity to move up into a more prestigious bowl game with wins in their final three games. As things stand, the best scenario for Texas is still a New Year’s Six bowl as Big 12 champions.
However, a more realistic scenario is the Longhorns ending up exactly where they are right now. In the Texas Bowl against a decent to below average SEC opponent.
Bowl games are all about fun matchups. Facing off against either LSU or Arkansas would provide plenty of headlines.
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Texas will compete in the Texas Bowl against a familiar foe in ESPN’s latest bowl projections.
On Monday, a short clip surfaced on Twitter of Arkansas head coach Sam Pittman stating that Texas is more widely viewed as their main rival than Texas A&M is. Continue reading “ESPN Bowl Projections: Texas to face their apparent ‘rivals’ from the SEC”
