Longhorns 'Know What's Ahead' Facing Alabama

The Texas Longhorns trudged to a victory Saturday, but that doesn't matter with a daunting opponent in the Alabama Crimson Tide just six days away.

Last season, the Georgia Bulldogs beat Missouri by four, Kentucky by 10 and needed a late touchdown against Kent State to win by a closer-than-the-final-score-suggests 17 points.

Teams win ugly sometimes, and they have to in order to compete for national championships. The No. 11 Texas Longhorns slogged their way to a 37-10 victory against the Rice Owls Saturday, but they understand a performance like that will get them ran out of Bryant-Denny Stadium next weekend.

"We enjoyed (the win)," defensive lineman Byron Murphy said postgame. "We know what's ahead of us this week."

Texas was two points short of shocking the world last season when the Alabama Crimson Tide rolled into town.

Quarterback Quinn Ewers, who went 19-for-30 for 260 yards and three touchdowns Saturday, was injured after the first quarter, giving way to former Longhorns quarterback Hudson Card for the final three quarters.

Kicker Bert Auburn drilled a 49-yard field goal with 1:29 to go in the fourth quarter to take a 19-17 lead.

After holding former Crimson Tide quarterback Bryce Young in check for most of the game, he completed five of his seven pass attempts for 41 yards and ran for 20 yards. The nine-play, 61-yard drive was capped off with Will Reichard's 33-yard game-winning field goal with 10 seconds left.

Murphy said 2022's dogfight against the Crimson Tide "showed them that we can play with them."

"We're not going to back down," Murphy said. "We're going to play to the whistle until it's all over with."

Alabama is coming off a completely opposite game than Texas. In quarterback Jalen Milroe's first career start, he completed 13-of-18 passes for 194 yards and three touchdowns, while rushing for two scores as well.

The Crimson Tide defense forced a pair of turnovers and limited Middle Tennessee to 211 yards of offense in a 56-7 win.

Head coach Steve Sarkisian is aware of the challenge and the "heck of an opportunity" that it would be to go knock off a top-five team on the road. He said that the Longhorns will have to play better than they did against Rice to do so.

"I say this all the time to the team, 'Everybody wants to win next Saturday night at 6 o'clock, but what are you going to do Sunday, Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday to prepare to put yourself in position to win?'" Sarkisian said. "We've got a mature enough team that can do that, but that's going to start with us as coaches in our approach and our leadership group, and then ultimately trickling down into that locker room to the team."

Texas kicks off against the No. 4 Crimson Tide in Tuscaloosa, Alabama, as a seven-point underdog Saturday. Kickoff is scheduled for 6 p.m. CT., and the game will be broadcast on ESPN.