By Steve Habel
Senior Contributing Writer
AUSTIN, Texas — “Don’t look a gift horse in the mouth.”
This is the saying that the Texas football team should have posted in its expansive and ornate locker room over the next three weeks as it prepares to play No. 11 Utah, the Pac-12 runner-up, in the Valero Alamo Bowl New Year’s Eve in San Antonio.
The bid to play in the Alamo Bowl usually is [s2If current_user_can(access_s2member_level2)]reserved for the second-best team in the Big 12 Conference, but, thanks to Oklahoma’s participation in the College Football Playoff and conference runner-up Baylor’s invitation to play in the Allstate Sugar Bowl, the Longhorns got the chance to head to San Antonio and jumped at it.
Texas (7-5 overall, 5-4 in Big 12 play) likely was not the third-best team in the conference — that is perhaps Oklahoma State or Iowa State — but both of those teams have played in San Antonio in recent years.
The Longhorns have not played in the Alamo Bowl since 2013, the final game of Mack Brown’s tenure at Texas, and also played in the game the previous year, beating Oregon State.
Given the choice of picking the Longhorns, who will bring a bevy of fans to the game if not fill hotel rooms in the Alamo City, the powers that be at the Alamo Bowl grabbed ahold of a sure thing.
“We just thought ,collectively, this is the right matchup with Utah and Texas this year to put together for the Valero Alamo Bowl,” Alamo Bowl CEO Derrick Fox said.
And, to be quite honest, there are a lot worse places to spend New Year’s Eve than on the San Antonio Riverwalk, right?
Texas head coach Tom Herman knows that playing in this game is a win for his team, even if it doesn’t win the game.
“Our seniors were able to close their careers at home with a win, and now they’ll have the opportunity to play their last game(s) as Longhorns in the state of Texas in front of so many of their friends and family,” Herman said.
“It’s a special thing for our whole team, but most of all, our seniors. We couldn’t be more excited to have this opportunity against a tremendous opponent in Utah. We’ll put in a ton of work to get ready for the game.”
Texas will need to put in that work. The Utes went 11-2 after losing the Pac-12 championship game to Oregon last Friday and dropped to 11th in the final College Football Playoff rankings.
“Any time we get ready for bowl games it means a lot, and we know it’s business that we have to handle,” Texas senior defensive end Malcolm Roach said. “Everybody knows it’s going to be the seniors’ last game in a Texas uniform, so it’s a great situation to be able to get ready for one of the best teams in the country and finish our careers off in Texas.”
Utah has won back-to-back Pac-12 South Division championships under coach Kyle Whittingham. The Utes began the season 3-0 before losing to USC, and then ran off eight straight wins to reach the Pac-12 championship.
“We have quite a few players on our roster from the state of Texas, and it’ll be a good experience for those guys to be able to get back home and play in front of some of their family,” Whittingham said.
“We are proud of all this team has accomplished this year, including winning a second consecutive Pac-12 South title and winning 11 games, the third-highest, single-season total in school history.”
Utah and Texas have met only once before. The Longhorns defeated the Utes, 21-12, in 1982.
“We always preach that there’s a ‘next man up’ kind of program here, so we’ve just got to make sure we’ve got guys ready to play,” Utah safety Terrell Burgess said. “It’ll just be another challenge that we have. So I think we’ve just got to make the best of it and just make sure that we go out on top.”
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