No. 1 Texas Gearing Up For SEC Kickoff

The Texas Longhorns' SEC season starts in less than a week.

Texas Longhorns wide receiver Ryan Niblett (21) evades a tackle from Louisiana Monroe Warhawks linebacker Brett Drillette (54) to continue to run the ball in the first half of the Texas Longhorns' game against the ULM Warhawks at Darrell K Royal Texas Memorial Stadium in Austin, Sept. 21, 2024. / Sara Diggins/American-Statesman / USA TODAY NETWORK via Imagn Images

Texas' fellow conference newcomer Oklahoma didn't have a dream start to its SEC era.

The No. 15 Sooners hosted No. 6 Tennessee at OU Memorial Stadium but fell to the Volunteers 25-15 in their first conference game. Texas SEC kickoff will take place in less than a week at DKR, and the Longhorns hope to have a different welcome.

Even before the season started, Texas was hyped not only by fans but by former and current SEC coaches.

Legendary former Alabama head coach and Steve Sarkisian's mentor Nick Saban thinks Texas was built for the conference since Sarkisian took over the head coaching position in 2021.

“Well, I’ll say this about Texas. Texas was built like an SEC team,” Saban said during the Pat McAfee Show in August. "Sark built Texas like an SEC team. They have big people up front. They’re physical.”

The SEC is arguably the strongest conference in college football -- out of the last five national champions, four have products of the Southeastern Conference, with Michigan breaking the streak in 2023.

But Sarkisian thinks his team is ready to face the giants, and as the No. 1 team in the country, looks like a giant itself.

“You know, I’ve said this before, but, we were building a team that had to go beat the best teams in the SEC anyways," Sarkisian said. "When you looked at the College Football Playoff, the SEC was always in the national championship game and probably the ones winning it. If we want to win a national championship here, which is what our goal is and what we're striving for, we had to build our team that way. When we made the move to the SEC, it really didn’t change our philosophical approach on the type of team we were building. It just made it a little easier for some of the kids we were recruiting and different things to know that was the conference we were going to be in."

Texas' conference season kicks off on Sept. 28 against Mississippi State at Darrell K Royal-Texas Memorial Stadium.