BY JIM VERTUNO
AUSTIN, Texas (AP) — Texas won the Big 12 title in 2023 on its way out the door to the Southeastern Conference. It was still swinging open when Arizona State waltzed in and won the league title in its debut season.
And now the old Big 12 champs meet the new Big 12 champs on the path toward a potential national title. The fifth-seeded Longhorns and fourth-seeded Sun Devils play News Years Day in the Peach Bowl in the quarterfinals of the College Football Playoff.
Both had their doubters they could get here. Texas (12-2) still had to prove is was “ready” for the SEC. Arizona State (11-2) was picked to finish last in the Big 12.
But the Sun Devils quickly started winning and having fun in some new road environments in college towns smaller than some of their stops in the more cosmopolitan old Pac-12. All-Americanrunning back Cam Skattebo led the barnstorming tour.
“We were not used to getting tortillas thrown at us at Texas Tech. You’re not used to some of these environments,” Sun Devils coach Kenny Dillingham said Monday.
“When you’re in the Pac-12, you’re playing in Seattle, you’re playing in L.A., you’re playing in Salt Lake City. We got to face a lot more small college town football with really, really great environments. … It was definitely fun to join a new league,” Dillingham said.
And Dillingham laid down some Texas roots. The Sun Devils are recruiting Texas players out of high school, and the current roster has six transfers who started their college careers in burnt orange in Austin.
“The guys we’ve gotten from Texas and coach (Steve Sarkisian’s) program have been unbelievable,” Dillingham said. “We know what we’re getting when we’re getting a guy from that program, and that’s a guy who has worked really hard, competed and been pushed. Those are the things that we like to bring in.”
Safety Xavion Alford was named All-Big 12. Defensive end Prince Dorbah is another Sun Devils starter. Defensive lineman Zac Swanson, who has two sacks this season, is another former Longhorn who said he relished a chance to beat his former team.
Recruited by Texas out of Phoenix, Swanson was a reserve in 2022 and 2023 behind future NFL draft picks T’Vondre Sweat and Byron Murphy.
“That’s a team who kicked me out and said I’d never I was never going to be good enough to play there,” Swanson said last week. “That’s something that has been on my agenda for a while.”
Dillingham joked he’d like to get more Texas transfers this week. Sarkisian simply noted that he wished he’d signed Skattebo, a Californian who transferred from Sacramento State after the 2022 season.
“I was unaware, so kudos to them. They found him, he’s a heckuva player,” said Sarkisian, who also is a California native.
Sarkisian said he was impressed by the Sun Devil’s first-year success in the Big 12.
“We were in that Big 12, what, for 27 years? We won four. This is their first year in and they won a Big 12 Championship. It’s a really hard thing to do,” Sarkisian said. “They’re playing with a ton of confidence right now. The last two months, I think they’re playing as good a football as anybody in the country.”
Despite wining that last Big 12 title and a playoff appearance in 2023, Texas still faced skeptics that the Longhorns would take their lumps in the SEC this year.
Texas was more than ready for the league and the Longhorns made it to the SEC championship game. Their only two losses have been to Georgia, the No. 2 seed in the playoff.
Sarkisian still remembers his 5-7 Texas debut in 2021. The program wasn’t ready for the SEC and the playoff back then, but it certainly is now. Texas is the only one of last year’s four playoff teams to make the expanded 12-team field this year.
“There’s a lot to be proud of, but mostly I’m proud of our veterans, our leaders, our seniors, because those guys went from 5-7 in year one, they went through 8-5 in year two, and they didn’t jump ship. They hung in there with us. They believed in what they were doing,” Sarkisian said.
