No. 2 Texas is preparing to face off against the team that handed them their sole loss of the season, taking on No. 5 Georgia in the SEC Championship.
The Longhorns fell to Georgia 30-15 in October at home, but with a rematch officially in the cards, Texas has more than just revenge to feed off of.
Since the 90s, Atlanta has hosted the SEC Championship game, currently being played in Mercedes-Benz Stadium. Atlanta is about an hour and a half drive from the Bulldogs’ home in Athens, meaning the atmosphere will feel more like an away game for Texas, rather than a neutral site.
Luckily, the Longhorns excel in an away game atmosphere. Texas has an 11 away game win streak, with its last loss in October of 2022 against Oklahoma State.
“You feed into the hate,” sophomore running back Quintrevion Wisner said about an away environment. “So the more hate you get, the more juice you should have. You know, just considering, who doesn’t like high competition? You get to play at a high level with a bunch of good guys, so we definitely get juiced up.”
Texas has had to face multiple opponents in tough environments this season, such as Arkansas and, most recently, Texas A&M.
Head coach Steve Sarkisian said when arriving in College Station last Saturday, the team’s bus drove right through a sea of Aggie fans. Knowing how the team is fueled by the other team’s fans’ hatred, Sarkisian was happy with the incident.
“It was probably the best thing they could have ever done, quite frankly,” Sarkisian said. “Because at that moment it alerted us to what he had to do and the biggest thing we had to do was stay tight together, stick together and that’s something our guys are comfortable with because of our culture.”
Sarkisian also said Texas has more false starts at home than away this season. With this statistic in mind, he said he believes that putting the team in a brutal and loud away environment forces them to listen, communicate and focus. Not only that, but it allows the team to stick together.
“The main thing I get from when we go on the road is the ‘horns down’, of course,” junior running back Jaydon Blue said, “But that just fuels a lot of us, because we know (what) we’re going into when we go on (the) road. So we know that we just have to stay together and just lean on each other … and we know with the 90-85 people that we do bring we just have to make sure that we lean on those guys.”
Texas will prepare for another away game-like atmosphere in Atlanta and, for Texas, they are ready to come in as an underdog and an enemy.
“We get to be the villain,” sophomore linebacker Anthony Hill Jr. said. “And who doesn’t want to be the villain every once in a while?
