By GLENN GUILBEAU
Tiger Rag Editor
Here Texas is in its first season in the Southeastern Conference with No. 1 Georgia coming up on Oct. 19 and its first game since 2011 against Texas A&M on Nov. 30, and it schedules Michigan?
The No. 3 Longhorns (1-0) play at No. 10 Michigan (1-0) Saturday at 11 a.m. on FOX in the game of the day at 107,601-seat Michigan Stadium, aka The Big House. It is also the first Texas-Michigan regular season pairing in history. In the only previous meeting, Texas beat Michigan, 38-37, in the Rose Bowl on Jan. 1, 2005.
And Texas coach Steve Sarkisian, a former Brigham Young quarterback in 1995 and ’96, sounds like he wants to play in the game.
“Yeah, I’m super pumped. I am, you guys,” he said at a press conference on Monday. “I love college football, and even as a kid watching Michigan play, them taking the field and all jumping up and hitting the ‘Go Blue’ sign, like I love that. There’s all this pageantry of the game, and The Big House is one of those and the Michigan helmets.”
And Sarkisian is not from Michigan. He is a Torrance, California, native.
“And to think, these two iconic programs with those iconic uniforms and those iconic helmets meeting for the first time in the Big House – man, it’s awesome,” he said. “I mean, I’m getting goosebumps right now, you know? And we’ve got five days to go. So it’s pretty special, definitely.”
Texas is a touchdown favorite to beat the defending national champions, who are a shell of what they were last season. Michigan lost most of its team from last season and its coach, Jim Harbaugh, who is now the Los Angeles Chargers head coach. Michigan then made a bad hire, promoting inexperienced offensive line coach/coordinator Sherrone Moore to head coach. The Wolverines looked average in a 30-10 win over Fresno State last week.
Look for a Texas blowout, not as bad as its 52-0 win over Colorado State last week when the Longhorns put up 545 yards, and backup quarterback Arch Manning threw a touchdown and ran for one. But the Longhorns will win easily.
Sarkisian can’t wait.
“Oh, it’s awesome,” he said on the SEC teleconference Wednesday. “The pageantry of it – I just love.”
VANDERBILT BEATS POWER FIVE TEAM FOR 1ST TIME SINCE 2022
Look out for the Commodores and fourth-year coach Clark Lea. Vanderbilt’s 34-27 win over Virginia Tech of the Atlantic Coast Conference Saturday at home in overtime was its first over a Power Five football team since beating Florida, 31-24, on Nov. 19, 2022.
Vanderbilt lost its last 10 games of the 2023 season to finish 2-10 and 0-8 in the SEC. Lea was also 2-10 and 0-8 in his first season in Nashville in 2021 before a 5-7 and 2-6 season in 2022.
“We are now on the road to change,” he said.
How about 2-0 first? Vanderbilt hosts Alcorn State (0-1) on Saturday night.
LINCOLN RILEY NOW HAPPY LSU STAYED ON THE SCHEDULE?
USC coach fled Oklahoma for USC, partly to get out of joining the SEC, according to some reports. Once at USC, he tried to get out of playing LSU. But now, LSU fans and media members are suggesting LSU should not have played USC and should start scheduling lesser opponents as the Tigers have lost five straight season openers, including four straight out of conference and three in a row under coach Brian Kelly.
Riley’s win over LSU jumped his team from No. 23 in the Associated Press poll to No. 13. It also made a little history. No team had held LSU to as few as 20 points since Arkansas did in a 13-10 loss in 2022. USC had not held any opponent to any lower point total since a 56-10 win over Stanford last season. And the Tigers at No. 13 were the highest ranked opponent to lose to the Trojans since No. 10 Utah fell, 30-23, in 2019.
SEC SCHEDULE
Arkansas (1-0) at No. 16 Oklahoma State (1-0), 11 a.m., ABC
No. 3 Texas (1-0) at No. 10 Michigan (1-0), 11 a.m., FOX
McNeese State (1-0) at Texas A&M (0-1), 11:45 a.m., SEC Network
Tennessee Tech (0-1) at No. 1 Georgia (1-0), 1 p.m., SEC Network+, ESPN+
California (1-0) at Auburn (1-0), 2:30 p.m., ESPN2
South Carolina (1-0) at Kentucky (1-0), 2:30 p.m., ABC
Middle Tennessee (1-0) at No. 6 Ole Miss (1-0), 3:15 p.m., SEC Network
Buffalo (1-0) at No. 9 Missouri (1-0), 6 p.m., SEC Network+, ESPN+
South Florida (1-0) at No. 4 Alabama (1-0), 6 p.m., ESPN
Samford (1-0) at Florida (0-1), 6 p.m., SEC Network+, ESPN+
Nicholls State (0-1) at No. 18 LSU (0-1), 6:30 p.m., SEC Network+, ESPN+
Alcorn State (0-1) at Vanderbilt (1-0), 6:30 p.m., ESPNU
No. 24 North Carolina State (1-0) at No. 14 Tennessee (1-0), 6:30 p.m., ABC
Houston (1-0) at No. 15 Oklahoma (1-0), 6:45 p.m., SEC Network
Mississippi State (1-0) at Arizona State (1-0), 8:30 p.m., ESPN
THE GUILBEAU POLL
1.Ole Miss (1-0). 2. Texas (1-0). 3. Georgia (1-0). 4. Alabama (1-0). 5. Tennessee (1-0). 6. Missouri (1-0). 7. Oklahoma (1-0). 8. LSU (0-1). 9. Texas A&M (0-1). 10. Vanderbilt (1-0). 11. Kentucky (1-0). 12. Auburn (1-0). 13. Florida (0-1). 14. South Carolina (1-0). 15. Mississippi State (1-0). 16. Arkansas (1-0).
QUOTE OF THE WEEK
“And we’re sitting here again. And we’re sitting here AGAIN, talking about the same things. About not finishing when you have an opponent in a position to PUT THEM AWAY. BUT WHAT WE’RE doing on the sideline is feeling like THE GAME IS OVER. And I’m so angry about it that I’ve got to do something about it. I’m not doing a good enough job as a coach. I’ve got to coach ’em better because it’s unacceptable for us not to have found a way to win that football game. It’s RIDICULOUS. It’s CRAZY. Crazy.”
… LSU football coach Brian Kelly, who pounded the table at his press conference Sunday night after losing 27-20 to USC, which trailed 17-13 in the fourth quarter.
BS QUOTE OF THE WEEK
“That’s the second person we’ve had as a guest say that LSU should schedule like Alabama after LSU lost to USC. Have they forgotten that Alabama basically invented playing Power Five teams as season openers for years? That’s a weak argument.”
WNSP Radio (Mobile, Alabama) co-host Mark Heim of “The Opening Kickoff” from 6 a.m. to 9 a.m. week days. Actually, Mark, YOUR argument is weak, as are similar ones I’ve heard from Alabama fans this week. No. 1, Alabama did not “invent” challenging scheduling for season openers. LSU and many other schools have been scheduling kickoff classics and the like for decades. LSU played at No. 16 Virginia Tech in 2002, for example.
Alabama did upgrade its non-conference schedule of season openers under former coach Nick Saban with Clemson in 2008, followed by Virginia Tech before weaklings San Jose State and Kent State in 2010 and ’11. Upper level programs Michigan, Virginia Tech, West Virginia, Wisconsin, USC, Florida State, Louisville and Miami followed and lost to the Tide from 2012-21. But that was then. The comparisons between LSU’s schedule and Alabama’s since LSU’s loss to USC is a discussion of the now. Heim’s and Alabama fans’ scheduling argument is in the past.
LSU has played and lost to UCLA, Florida State twice and USC in season openers since 2021. Since 2022, Alabama has played rent-a-wins Utah State (55-0), Middle Tennessee (56-7) and Western Kentucky (63-0). And Alabama really needed that Middle Tennessee opener last season before losing to Texas in the next game and struggling to beat South Florida after that. Had last year’s slow-starting and stumbling Alabama team opened with a real opponent in 2023, it would have started off 0-2.
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