Subscribe
Follow Us
Texas football coach Steve Sarkisian wants his team to “embrace the hate” as the Longhorns enter their first game week of 2023. Expectations and preseason hype are immensely high for Texas football this year, and Sarkisian really needs to deliver. Texas is No. 11 in the country and the favorite to win the Big 12 in the program's last year in the conference. The Longhorns host Rice on Saturday to begin the 2023 college football season.
“We’ve got to embrace the hate. You can’t just sit back and keep taking punches, and it’s just OK. At some point, you have to go hunt, you have to punch back, and you have to fight back. That’s what we’re imploring veterans to do,” Steve Sarkisian said, per 247Sports.
Texas has a stacked roster and is returning 10 of 11 starting offensive players. The offensive line is rock solid, the receiving corps is as good as anyone's, and Quinn Ewers is a phenomenal quarterback talent. The defense ranked second in the Big 12 in scoring in 2022 and held Alabama to just 20 points. A lot of that talent is returning as well.
But the tale of Texas football in recent years has been underperformance relative to lofty expectations. That means that a No. 11 preseason ranking is met with animosity from the rest of the college football world, and rightfully so. People want to see Texas prove that it deserves to be in the top-10 conversation after finishing 8-5 last season.
“We’re the University of Texas. We’re not the fan favorite outside of the state of Texas. I recognize that. We’re not the fan favorite when we get outside of Austin. But there’s a lot of pride in wearing this across our chest, and we need to recognize that,” Sarkisian said.
“We’ll find out come December how good we are, but I think we’re pretty good. Now we need to go play like it.”
