Texas 'on a mission' in Big 12 ahead of move to SEC

From the outside looking in it would only seem natural for the players on the Texas Longhorns to have the SEC looming in the back of their minds.

After all, the SEC is easily the toughest and best conference in college football and Texas will be part of it in 2024. Unless they're seniors or planning on going elsewhere, many members of Texas' 2023 squad will be playing SEC football soon enough.

According to head coach Steve Sarkisian, though, the near future isn't the issue on his player's minds right now. They're still a Big 12 program and there's only one goal in that regard.

“I really feel like our team is on a mission,” Sarkisian recently told ESPN's Greg McElroy. “Like we’ve been building for this, to win a Big 12 championship. I felt like, you know, they will all tell you that we missed an opportunity a year ago, to not play for the Big 12 Championship Game, because of our own undoing.

“You know, we made some mistakes in a couple of games that [cost] us the opportunity to be in that game, and these guys have been on a mission all fall, or all winter, all spring.”

Texas lost to Texas Tech in late September, 37-34 in overtime. The Longhorns also lost at No. 11 Oklahoma State and against No. 4 TCU. Texas lost by only seven points in both of those contests.

“What was interesting is we were in a team meeting and I was referencing that, ‘Hey, just so you guys are aware, they’re going to release the SEC schedule tonight,’ these guys wanted to put out our 2023 schedule, to remind everybody who we were playing this year. So it didn’t take much,” Sarkisian explained of his team's ability to focus on its goals within the Big 12. 

No matter what happens for Texas in 2023, the Longhorns have without a doubt had a great run in the Big 12. As one of the conference's original members from 1996, Texas has won the Big 12 three times.

The issue? The Longhorns haven't won the conference since 2009, so Sarkisian's 2023 team has 15 seasons of disappointment to redeem this season.