By Steve Habel, Senior Contributing Writer
AUSTIN, Texas — Even with a capacity of just under 100,000, there aren’t enough seats in Royal-Texas Memorial Stadium to meet the demand for the titanic Saturday night showdown between No. 6 LSU and No. 9 Texas.
It is the two programs’ first regular-season meeting since 1954, and it is the first non-conference matchup at Darrell K Royal-Texas Memorial Stadium between two teams ranked among the nation’s top 10 since No. 1 Ohio State visited No. 2 Texas in 2006.
The game has been [s2If current_user_can(access_s2member_level2)]on both teams’ radars for years, and that fire was further stoked by the Longhorns’ return to relevance last season.
Texas, which jumped from 10th to ninth after the first week of the season, opened its campaign with a 45-14 walloping of Louisiana Tech last Saturday. The Longhorns were led by quarterback Sam Ehlinger’s 310 total yards (276 through the air) and four touchdown passes.
Ehlinger’s workmanlike performance exemplified UT’s attitude of taking things as they come, focused on “going 1-0″ in every rep of every drill and every snap of every game.
Texas coach Tom Herman said Thursday that Ehlinger’s approach and demeanor hasn’t changed in the past week.
“He’s the same guy,” Herman said, “which is pretty intense.”
Herman told the media that there were no major injury updates nor any major personnel changes since he announced earlier in the week that freshman running back Jordan Whittington would miss up to six weeks with a sports hernia injury he tore in the win over Louisiana Tech.
Herman also said the Longhorns likely would use Mason Ramirez at third-string running back instead of David Gbenda if things got that drastic.
Meanwhile, the Tigers waylaid Georgia Southern 55-3 at home in their season opener.
LSU’s high-powered offense lived up to expectations, scoring 45 points with the starters in the game as quarterback Joe Burrow tied a school record with five touchdown passes. Fourteen players caught passes for the Tigers, and LSU outgained Georgia Southern, 472-98.
“Very proud of our whole football team, our coaching staff, the way they prepared for game,” LSU coach Ed Orgeron said of his team. “We were very efficient on offense, the spread offense. Got off to a good start. Joe was on the money with his passes.”
Burrow passed for 278 yards and, like Ehlinger, is a second-tier Heisman candidate behind frontrunners like Trevor Lawrence of Clemson and Tua Tagovailoa of Alabama.
Texas defensive coordinator Todd Orlando said trying to prepare for a LSU new offense with only one game of tape has been a challenge.
“You don’t want to chase so much that you end up confusing your guys,” Orlando said. “We got the first game under our belt, and I expect us to be better across the board because we’ve been practicing better. We will see a lot more from LSU this week than it showed last week.”
Both coaches tried to downplay the importance of the game, even though a win Saturday could be a rocket boost in the run to the College Football Playoff.
“I expect them to play well,” Orgeron said about his team Tuesday. “This is a mature group. The way they acted yesterday was not giddy. It was ‘Tell the Truth Monday.’ They handled the film very well. We had one of our best Monday practices we ever had.”
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