AUSTIN – Every culture and society fears a boogeyman. Sack Man in Spain. Baba Yaga in Russia. Butzemann in Germany. In American college football, we call him Nick Saban. And our boogeyman arrives in Austin on Saturday to provide the Texas Longhorns, and his former assistant coach Steve Sarkisian, a taste of future life in the SEC. 

The boogeyman, like Saban’s Alabama, operates in fear. They beat most opponents before the game even starts. Sarkisian acknowledged this truth during his weekly press conference on Monday. The second-year head coach of the Longhorns did everything in his power to praise Saban, the Alabama program, and to remind everyone in the room, and in his own locker room, that the Week 2 matchup against Alabama is just that – a Week 2 contest with an out of conference team. 

“One of the biggest mistakes people make is (thinking) this is going to be the game that defines our program,” Sarkisian said about big games in general. “It might. It might not. I’m not that concerned about it. I’m more concerned about just the way we play the game.”   

Baby steps. That’s what Sarkisian needs his Longhorns to take. They don’t need to beat the top-ranked Crimson Tide on Saturday morning to convince the public that Texas is on its way back to national relevance. They need to play competitive football against the measuring stick of college football to prove to the players, and coaches, inside the locker room that the Longhorns are inching back towards the ability to play with anyone in college football. 

The goal in 2022 is to compete for the Big 12 title. The SEC is in the future and looking ahead is a luxury that the Longhorns simply don’t possess after a 5-7 finish in 2021. 

“All along, my goal has been to be in Dallas on December 3,” Sarkisian said referencing the Big 12 title game. “This game has no impact on that.” 

Saban takes pleasure in beating former assistants. He’s notorious for chewing out assistants, and Sarkisian wasn’t immune. Sarkisian joked that Lane Kiffin got it the worst, but both were on receiving ends of a tongue-lashing from Saban. He said those experiences “shaped us”. Saban is 25-2 against former assistants dating back to 2010 against Tennessee coach Derek Dooley. He was 25-0 until Jimbo Fisher’s Texas A&M squad beat Alabama last year in College Station. Saban then lost to former assistant Kirby Smart in the College Football Playoff’s national championship game. 

Fisher needed five tries to beat Saban. Smart required six. Lane Kiffin is 0-2. Billy Napier is 0-1. Will Muschamp is 0-3. Saturday is Sarkisian’s first opportunity to match wits with his former boss. He said his “career was saved” by Saban at Alabama in 2016 when he was an analyst and eventually the interim offensive coordinator after personal issues cost Sarkisan the head coaching job at USC. After a two-year stint in the NFL with the Atlanta Falcons, Sarkisian went back to Alabama as the offensive coordinator for two seasons, including the 2020 national championship year. 

Sarkisian knows Nick Saban, but that isn’t a one-way street. Saban also knows Sarkisian, as does Alabama defensive coordinator Pete Golding. The two matched wits every day in practice at Alabama for two seasons. The tendency might be to overthink game plans for games between teams with this much similarity. Not so, says Sark. He said that Texas’ game plan was for the game against Alabama was made three months ago, and that he’s sure Alabama was on a similar timeline. Neither team played a Power Five opponent in Week 1. Texas beat UL-Monroe at home. Alabama knocked off Utah State. 

“It’s like being a pitcher (going against a batter who is familiar with you), sometimes you’ve got to throw your best pitch,” Sarkisian said about the gameplan. “I don’t think either of us thought going into Week 1 that we were going to see something new that was drastically going to change what we wanted to do.” 

Facing an old, legendary boss isn’t a new challenge for Sarkisian. He knocked off USC’s Pete Carroll while coaching at Washington back in 2009. Sarkisian coached under Carroll in a variety of roles from 2005 through 2008. That success propelled him into the head coaching gig at Washington in 2009. The Huskies were winless the year before, but managed to upset the No. 3-ranked Trojans, 16-13, on a last-second field goal. 

“I think it was buying into the idea of what the game plan was, and where we needed to be from a psyche standpoint,” Sarkisian said about that upset win over Washington. 

Is Texas in a similar spot? No one can know until Saturday. The focus can’t be on Alabama or ESPN College Gameday or on the FOX Big Noon Kickoff. The Longhorns can’t worry about perception, or the point spread or how many tickets they can find for friends and family. To pull the upset, or at least keep this game within reach, Texas must look inward. At least that’s what Sarkisian believes. 

“We need to be enamored with us, focused on us” he said. “We need to make sure we’re doing the things necessary for us to do our job really well.”