Last Year on the Texas- Alabama game day I wrote this with this very important statement to close this article out.
People keep saying Texas needs to get ready for the SEC. I say the SEC needs to get ready for Texas.
Twenty-Four hours ago, you would have scoffed at me. Not Today. This warning still holds for when you visit Austin.
SEC, Welcome to Austin, Texas- Get Used to It
There have been lots of talks about when and how will Texas adjust to being in the SEC. Today, we learn what will be like when the Texas Longhorns are truly back. It is bigger and louder than ANYTHING you can imagine. This is the preview. This program has been down so long that you may have forgotten what Texas is REALLY like. When there is a big game week in and week out in the SEC, the rest of the SEC will hate going to Austin and the 100,000 rabid Longhorns fans waiting for them inside DKR. Kyle Field's atmosphere is excellent. Yes, Aggie fans that is ME giving you credit for being awesome game day fans. Here will be the future difference for SEC visitors to Texas- Austin itself. Nashville is by far the biggest city in the SEC but that is Vanderbilt's home. Baton Rouge is the biggest football hotbed city. Baton Rouge has about 250,000 residents. Austin has about a MILLION. OK, they are not ALL Longhorns fans- just 80% of them, or it will feel like that. The noise they are making and will make today is deafening. The DKR crowd will just be the climax to your experience in Austin. The burnt orange experience awaiting you SEC is going to be crushing. Just watch the fans today. This team is not even good yet and the students are in line 4 hours before game time. Crowds of fans are filling the streets and filling up two college pregame shows audiences while 13.000 students are already packed in the stadium. Bevo Boulevard- the game day pop up carnival outside the stadium will have drinks flowing and rowdy fans soaking it all in. The tailgaters are like a swarm of ants for miles surrounding the stadium. The band is playing. It is big and loud which means it is AUSTIN. Yes, it MAY take years before the Longhorns are good in the SEC, but the days of throwing shade at the game day experience in Austin are over. Austin is lit. Are you ready for THIS SEC? People keep saying Texas needs to get ready for the SEC. I say the SEC needs to get ready for Texas.
Hook 'Em.
Part 2- SEC, Welcome to the University of Texas- Get Used to It
This year, it just got worse.
Tuscaloosa, a town of around 100,000 permanent residents saw nearly that many Longhorns fans descend upon it, buy out hotels, swarm the streets, and buy every available ticket at whatever insane price that was asked. Why?
Well, here is the dirty little secret no one in the Big 12 warned you about. The Aggies tried to tell you. You see the little sister in College Station has an amazing game day experience. The Ags have competed in your excellent conference because being in that conference has helped their recruiting TREMENDOUSLY and they have almost as much money as - well- Texas. You THINK you just added another dorky Texas school you can push around. Folks, you added the biggest and meanest and most well-funded bully in ALL of college sports. Texas was being held back by NOT being in the SEC. Ten months from now that will no longer be the case. Texas recruiting has been skyrocketing the last two years. MULTIPLE high-4-star and 5-star recruits were just waiting for that game last night for Texas to prove it.
Texas did.
And they proved it while taking over your home field in one of the most difficult places to play- a place where all others in the SEC constantly lose. Most of the Alabama players weren't even alive the last time Alabama lost at home by ten points.
Watch the recruits flock to Texas. If they can play at the top level of college football in the coolest city in the SEC- Austin, Texas, where do you expect teenage males to go? If they can win at the highest level of college football at Texas, WHERE do you expect them to go?
Do you want to know what a lot of Texas fans REALLY think about you after last night? Here is a posting from one of the Texas message boards (Link- Orangebloods.com) that summarizes it well. There are only about a thousand messages with similar thoughts.
Since 2009, fans of other teams have thrown justifiable shade at the Longhorns. However, this is a NEW era of Longhorns Football. Doubt them all you want. PLEASE doubt them. It will make their takeover of the SEC even sweeter. Let me help folks understand what I mean by takeover. I am NOT claiming the Longhorns are instantly going to win the SEC every year. I don't think ANY team is going to do that in football or and SEC sport every year.
Here is the point. While SEC fans smugly act like Texas has something to prove to the SEC world, the TRUTH is Texas will immediately have as much influence and perform very well across the board in football and basketball and baseball and basically all sports in the SEC. Perhaps, you have heard of the Directors Cup? You might want to look it up if you haven't.
When almost EVERY sport in the SEC is going to have Texas competing among the best in the conference, including football, do you understand what that is? Dominance. Today is the day SEC you stop throwing shade and start showing respect. Texas is NOT Texas A&M.
Please ignore me now and admit you hear me later,
The SEC better get ready for Texas.
You have been warned.
Yes, I know, and we know the Horns are not perfect. They will likely lose a game or two this year. The days of hating fans having fun at the Longhorns expense are over.
Hook 'Em.
P.S. - For those that think this article lacks "journalistic integrity", I will add this that I have on MANY other posts about the Longhorns.
"That is the nature of much of what I will write here about the Longhorns. This is a FAN space more than a DATA space for UT. I admit it. I bleed burnt orange and my dad's Silver Spurs are on the bookshelf behind me. I am the middle generation of what is now three Longhorns graduates. I suspect my daughter will someday have a child in Austin too. That is just how it is in this household. What is different here is that we are real about who we are. Ok that's the disclaimer."
P.S.S. - For the SEC fans responding with some version of "You dumb Texas fans have no idea about the SEC."
Except I DO.
Son went to LSU and worked with the LSU football team. Went to many games in Tiger Stadium.
Son went to Grad School at Auburn and worked with the football team.
Been to the Iron Bowl. TRUST me I KNOW. I have been living the SEC life too. Trust me I know SEC fans.
Try some other form of shade.
Do you want to support this site? Do you want to make sure you continue to get real analysis like this?
It takes time and it does cost money, I really would appreciate your support of the work. Here is your opportunity to do that at a nominal cost. This support will help me continue to provide you what I do- objective analysis of your teams. It will also help the site improve and expand our reach.
If you don't think our work is worthy of financial support, I will accept your non-action feedback humbly.
The details are below and available at Patreon.com. It is VERY easy to sign up.