‘Let it go’: Texas football players picking up pieces, done talking about Georgia with pesky Vanderbilt up next

For years, the 25th-ranked Commodores were the SEC’s doormat. Not any more.

Brian Davis
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Monday was a normal workday for the now fifth-ranked and no-longer-undefeated Texas Longhorns.

Coaches and players went through their normal Monday meetings and held their normal practice inside Royal-Memorial Stadium.

“The sun came up,” multiple players told reporters, either summoning their favorite phrase in collective fashion or repeating words from their own coach.

Presumably, the coaches spent the rest of the weekend reminding the Horns that everything is still possible. Texas (6-1, 2-1 SEC) can still win the league title and still make the College Football Playoff. Saturday’s frustrating 30-15 loss to now-No. 2 Georgia didn’t change that.

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“You’ve got to put it past you,” defensive back Jahdae Barron said. “I have a 24-hour rule. Let it go.”

As left tackle Kelvin Banks said, “You definitely can't just dwell on what's already happened, like Saturday is what happened Saturday. We lost. We kind of just got to regroup and go from there.”

“We have everything in front of us,” safety Michael Taaffe said. “I love how college football is structured right now, because you have 12 teams that get to battle for a national championship at the end of it. But if we were worried about that, then we would be taking our focus off of Vanderbilt and they deserve our focus.”

Ah, yes, No. 25 Vanderbilt. For years, the Commodores (5-2, 2-1) were the SEC’s doormat. This season, the smart boys from Nashville rose up and took down No. 15 Alabama. Fans tore down the goal posts, walked them down Broadway and threw them into the Cumberland River.

They’ll want to drown the Horns, too. And Vandy running back Sedrick Alexander, an Austin LBJ project, may be the one throwing them an anchor.

Quarterback Diego Pavia may be the team’s leading rusher, but Alexander is averaging four yards per carry for a team riding a three-game winning streak.

Vanderbilt has cracked the Associated Press Top 25 in five different seasons since the 1950s. This is one of them.

The Horns talk extensively about their team culture. Barron believes that, given the last year or more, it’ll be hard for one loss to derail the entire program.

“We’ve been through a lot together, so we know what each person means to one another and what we've been through,” Barron said. “I think that’s why we’re able to adapt and adjust when things don't go our way. And we love one another, so I think that's what's going to keep us going.”

Texas does have some offensive issues that need to be addressed. The Georgia game was the third straight league foe where the offense got off to a slow start. The offense has scored only seven points in the first quarter of the last three games combined.

Third down was a strength for this team. The Horns came into last Saturday’s game converting 50% of their third-down attempts. They went 2-for-15 against the Bulldogs.

Quarterback Quinn Ewers was temporarily benched in the second quarter but he returned for the entire second half. Ewers completed just 25 of 43 passes for 211 yards, threw two touchdowns but also one interception and lost two fumbles.

Sarkisian said safety Andrew Mukuba (knee) will be questionable this week. That’ll mean Barron is likely to shift over and play more safety.

What’s done is done, several players said. Back to work.

“We’re a really good football team,” Sarkisian said. “We just need to get back to playing our brand, our style of football.”

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