Urban Meyer Believes Texas Longhorns Beat Arizona State For One Reason

The former college football head coach and current CFB analyst on FOX Urban Meyer thinks Texas will advance to the semifinals of the CFB Playoffs.

Ohio State Buckeyes head coach Urban Meyer pumps his arms as the Buckeyes take the field before a NCAA college football game between the Ohio State Buckeyes and the Oklahoma Sooners on Saturday, September 9, 2017 at Ohio Stadium in Columbus, Ohio. [Joshua A. Bickel/Dispatch] / Joshua A. Bickel / USA TODAY NETWORK

We are nearing the quarterfinal round of the College Football Playoffs, where only four teams will advance. Out of the four games that will be played on New Year's Eve and New Year's Day, the Texas Longhorns and the Arizona State Sun Devils are the most uneven game, according to ESPNBet. ESPNBet has Texas at -13.5 point favorites to win, the largest margin for any team in the quarterfinal.

Winning the game will be harder said than done for the Longhorns however, who play the Big 12 Champions who went 11-2 on the season and earned a bye in the playoffs as the No. 4 seed.

So why is Texas favored? Former football head coach and current CFB analyst for FOX Urban Meyer thinks Texas wins because of the battle at the line of scrimmage. Meyer believes that Texas has the advantage on the offensive and defensive lines against Arizona State, calling Texas a "buzzsaw" that ASU can't dull when he was on the Triple Option on Monday, a podcast on YouTube featuring Meyer, Mark Ingram II, and Rob Stone.

"We won three national titles, and the reason we won is the line of scrimmage," Meyer said. "As you start to get higher, the more competitive the games are. A lot of times the skill set, unless you just have an absolute freak of freaks, skillsets, a lot of times start to equalize a little bit the line of scrimmage because it's going to be a field position game."

Arizona State has a really good offensive line that has only allowed 18 sacks on the season and has helped the run game explode for almost 200 rushing yards a game throughout the season. But the Texas Longhorns offensive line has helped lead the Texas offense to some of the best offensive stats in the entire nation and was also nominated as a Joe Moore semifinalist. They have also had three different offensive linemen (Kelvin Banks Jr., Jake Majors, and Cam Williams) win SEC Offensive Lineman of the Week awards and Banks is a projected first-round pick for the NFL Draft this upcoming spring.

For the defensive line, Arizona State has a strong run defense, but the pass defense is bottom-10 in the nation according to PFF. Texas has been strong in every aspect of the defensive line and has made multiple clutch fourth-down stops in recent games to show their power. Texas has 41 sacks on the season compared to Arizona State's 21. Colin Simmons, Texas's leader for sacks at 8.0, recently won the 2024 Shaun Alexander Freshman Player of the Year Award to add on.

The talent is there, the execution for Texas will be the main concern for the Longhorns.

The game will kick off at noon C.T. on New Year's Day at Mercedes-Benz Stadium in Atlanta, GA.

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