TEXAS – ALABAMA SET FOR A SHOWDOWN TO HIGHLIGHT WEEK 2 IN CFB
Texas doesn’t officially join the SEC until next season, but it will get an early taste of SEC hospitality when it visits Tuscaloosa on Saturday (7 ET on ESPN).
These football bluebloods – who rank tied for second and fifth all-time in victories – have met 10 times. Alabama won the last two (last year in Austin, 2010 BCS championship game) after going 0-7-1 in the first eight meetings.
Alabama History vs. Texas is surprisingly bad
Alabama’s 2-7-1 record against Texas is tied for its second-worst against any school it has faced at least three times. The Crimson Tide are 0-3 against Rice and 1-3 against Boston College).
The two Crimson Tide wins both featured momentum-shifting injuries to the starting quarterback for Texas. Quinn Ewers was 9-for-12 with 134 passing yards in the first quarter last season before he left the game, which Alabama won 20-19.
Colt McCoy was knocked out of the game during the first drive of the 2010 BCS championship game; Alabama cruised to a 37-21 win despite Greg McElroy only throwing for 58 yards.
That’s not the only quarterback intrigue in this series. The teams met in the first prime-time Orange Bowl in 1965, which Texas won 21-17 after stuffing Joe Namath – who came off the bench – on a quarterback sneak from the one-yard line.
Alabama vs Texas Fun Facts
Alabama has gone on to win five national championships since the teams met in the final game of the 2009 season while Texas has finished with a losing record five times in 13 seasons. The Crimson Tide’s worst record since then was 10-3 in 2010; the Longhorns’ best record in that span was 10-4.
Over that same span (since 2010), Alabama and Texas have had vastly different success in AP-ranked matchups. Since 2010, Alabama has a 67-18 record (.788 win pct) in AP-ranked matchups, the best record of any team to play at least 10 of these games.
As for Texas, the Longhorns are 4-18 in these same games, the second-worst record among 43 teams to play 10+ ranked matchups. Only Mississippi State has been worse over that span.
Why The Longhorns Could Be Back….Again
How impressive was Quinn Ewers in the first quarter against Alabama last season? He was just the fourth quarterback to throw for 130 yards in first quarter against the Crimson Tide since Nick Saban’s arrival in 2007; the others were Tennessee’s Hendon Hooker (2021), Texas A&M’s Johnny Manziel (2013) and Utah’s Brian Johnson (2009 Sugar Bowl).
Texas quarterbacks went 7-for-12 on throws at least 15 yards downfield in last year’s game against Alabama (Ewers went 3-for-4).
Only two teams in the past 10 seasons had a higher completion percentage on downfield passes against Alabama (min. 10 attempts): Texas A&M’s Johnny Manziel went 9-for-12 in 2013 and LSU’s Joe Burrow went 6-for-10 in 2019.
We will have more on this game and lots of others all week long on Shemon and Sheppard 2-6pm.