DALLAS – When asked about the mental fatigue attached to the longest college football season on record, Texas defensive back and Thorpe Award winner Jahdae Barron responded with one of his favorite sayings, a rhetorical question he uses to remind himself and his teammates to stay in the moment. 

“Can you be committed to the process without being attached to the result?” 

Looking ahead is easy, but dangerous. Especially for a Texas team who was obsessed with returning to the College Football Playoff in the longest season in the history of college football. The Longhorns played 14 games in a 2009 season that ended in a national title game appearance against Alabama. They played 13 games when Vince Young led Texas past USC to end the 2005 season. The Cotton Bowl contest against Ohio State on Friday night will be this team’s 16th game. It’ll take 17 to finish the race. 

“We were joking that we can see the light of the tunnel,” Texas defensive coordinator Pete Kwiatkowski said. “Week in and week out, they’ve been outstanding with the mental approach and going back to work to get ready for our next opponent.” 

No one downplayed the physical toll that a 16-game season would place on college-aged players. But maybe we all undersold how hard it’d be mentally and emotionally. It’s probably why three of the four teams remaining in the CFP have lost two games. Notre Dame, the only team remaining with less than two losses, doesn’t play in a conference and didn’t go to a conference championship game. 

Texas began the season against Colorado State on Aug. 31 in what might as well be three years ago. Barron has played 913 snaps. Offensive stalwarts Hayden Conner, Gunnar Helm, Jake Majors, and Cam Williams have also logged over 900 snaps on the season. Anthony Hill is third defensively with 817 snaps. But it isn’t just the football that is tiring. So is the process. The practices, the film studies, the extra days in the cold tub. 

“It takes a big toll on you mentally and emotionally, for sure,” Hill said. “But that’s where teammates and family and friends come in to help loosen you up when it is time to loosen up and tighten up when it is time to tighten up.” 

Consistency is the goal for the marathon run. The Longhorns were well prepared to handle the physical grind. Head coach Steve Sarkisian said his Longhorns reconstructed the spring, summer, and even fall workouts with the long season in mind. To handle the mental grind, they leaned on each other and the standard the program fought to set since he arrived ahead of the 2021 season. 

“It is a challenge to wake up every day and ask yourself, ‘is this something I truly love?’” Tre Wisner admitted. “That’s why we have great mentors around the program to tap into us mentally to make sure to we’re on the straight path. It does get tough at times.” 

It goes back to Barron’s saying. Stay in the moment. For a long time, Texas built a reputation as a football program that was easily knocked off the path. The Horns played down to their competition and failed to consistently live up to the hype and expectations on the Forty Acres. Sarkisian and Kyle Flood experienced first-hand how much more important the process is than the results under Nick Saban. And Flood believes this Texas team’s super power was the ability to treat Week 2 the same as Week 13 or the Peach Bowl. 

“All the great teams find that rhythm for game week,” Flood said. “. It took some time to establish that, but the last two years have laid that foundation. You don’t get an advance because of what you did last week. Having a mature and experienced team helps with that.”

Motivation won’t be hard to find for Texas or Ohio State. Both teams are one game away from the national championship. From achieving the goal each program set early in the offseason. Texas reached the semifinals last season before falling to Washington in the Sugar Bowl. They let that failure fuel their return. Now, they need to rely on their experience and culture to take the next step. 

“Some of the leaders, including me, belabor the point that our standard is the same whether we’re playing Colorado State or we’re playing Ohio State,” Hill said. “It can be hard, but the coaches hold us accountable.”