Longhorns Country

Texas Longhorns Bowl Hopes Dashed in 31-23 Loss at West Virginia

Texas lost its chance at a post season birth with their Saturday loss to West Virginia

Matt Galatzan

The Texas Longhorns, or at the very least their fans, did not expect the 2021 season to turn out this way. 

On Saturday morning, Texas entered its matchup with West Virginia with the hopes of bowl eligibility still on the table. 

By Saturday afternoon, those hopes were dashed, with the Longhorns falling 31-23 in Morgantown at Milan Puskar Stadium.

It was the sixth consecutive loss for the Longhorns, tying a disappointing bow on a season that began with an inordinate amount of hype and hope for the first year under a new head coach.

But for Steve Sarkisian, it is still the beginning. 

The Longhorns did make a late push here, Keilan Robinson being joined by Roschon Johnson in putting up numbers on the ground ...

And the Longhorns used two QBs, neither of them able to match West Virginia's Jaret Doege, who threw three TD passes. (Casey Thompson was in, then out, then in again when Hudson Card limped off late. ... and then another injury forced another late switch.)

Despite the loss, and the surely large amounts of criticism from the fans that will head his way via social media and other routes (including from SI, as we are obliged to be fair in all directions), Texas is still on the right path. 

It might not look that way to the casual viewer, but Sark isn't just putting a new paint job on the Longhorn program, he is ripping it down to the studs and completely rebuilding it from the ground up. 

Why? because that is exactly what it needs.

Much like the Texas program's journey since the exit of Mack Brown, Sarkisian's path to becoming the head coach at the University of Texas began on rocky footing.

But along the way, through humility, hard work, and passion, he is learning - and teaching - how to navigate that path.

And that is what he is attempting to do in Austin for the Longhorns, and that's why Sark is uniquely qualified to accomplish what the previous two coaches in Austin have failed to do .... win big. 

Texas will wrap up the 2021 season on Friday against Kansas State at home, with kickoff set for 11 a.m.

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Matt Galatzan
MATT GALATZAN

Matt Galatzan is the Managing Editor and Publisher of Texas Longhorns On SI and Texas A&M Aggies On SI and a long-time member of the Football Writer’s Association of America. He graduated from the University of Mississippi, where he studied integrated marketing communications, with minors in journalism and business administration. Galatzan started in the sports journalism industry in 2014 covering the Dallas Mavericks and SMU Mustangs with 247Sports. He then moved to Sports Illustrated's Fan Nation network in 2020, eventually being taking over as the Managing Editor and Publisher of the Longhorns and Aggies sites a year later. You can find Galatzan on all major social media channels, including Twitter on @MattGalatzan.

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