In college football showdown, Texas will try beating Georgia at its own game

Quinn Ewers of the Texas Longhorns.

For more than a decade, as Texas flirted with returning to its former status as one of college football’s elite programs, it was one of the most popular questions in the sport.

Are the Longhorns finally back? For just as long, the answer stayed the same: No.

That changed in 2023, when Texas went 12-2 in coach Steve Sarkisian’s third season and appeared in the College Football Playoff for the first time. Few, this season, are still questioning the top-ranked Longhorns (6-0).

Even when starting quarterback Quinn Ewers was injured and missed two games, Texas was able to insert backup quarterback Arch Manning, the former top recruit in the country in 2023 whose uncles, Peyton and Eli Manning, combined to win four Super Bowl titles.

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Yet, the Longhorns will face their toughest challenge thus far Saturday when they host No. 5 Georgia (5-1). And it’s appropriate that Texas’ “Welcome to the SEC” moment should come against the Bulldogs, the program whose path to the top the Longhorns are trying to mimic.

Like Texas, Georgia spent much of the last 30 years boasting a past national championship and a campus in a recruiting-rich part of the country, with little modern success to show for it. Under coach Kirby Smart, a former defensive coordinator who learned under Nick Saban at Alabama, the Bulldogs supercharged their recruiting; in the nine years since Smart’s hire, they have finished with the top-ranked class three times and been ranked lower than fourth just once.

In 2022, the same season in which Georgia won a second consecutive national championship, the university spent $4.5 million on football recruiting, most in the country, according to USA Today. The quarterback of the Bulldogs’ back-to-back championship teams was not a former high-star recruit but he did…

Source link : https://sports.yahoo.com/college-football-showdown-texas-try-135541422.html

Author : NBC News

Publish date : 2024-10-18 13:55:41

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