Do you know what makes good head coaches? To be thankful for their mistakes and focus on what their downfall has to offer them. That’s what Texas Longhorns HC Steve Sarkisian is a pro at doing. After all, the program had its second bad fall against Kirby Smart’s Georgia Bulldogs. While Sarkisian should be upset with his boys, he is all geared up to protect his squad from any bad juju. By doing that, the HC had found a silver lining as they have been landed an SEC loss. After all, they know they have got a wild card.

Yes, we know how desperate the Longhorns were about giving Smart’s boys a tough lesson. But that dream did not come true. As, for their second face-off of the season, the Bulldogs landed a 19-22 defeat to the Longhorns. But turns out that their SEC loss has been a blessing in disguise. Atleast Sarkisian believes it so even though they now carry a huge burden of winning four games back-to-back. On the Rich Eisen Show, the host asked the HC, “Do you think that you’re best equipped to come out of that non-bye? We spot you’re one of eight teams that has to win four in a row so does that help you you think Steve?”

Sarkisian started with, “I think we’re in a good spot you know byes are great and essentially we got a bye this week to try to get ourselves healthy.” Well, like the HC said, don’t get him wrong. It’s not that losing was his goal. But Sarkisian does not feel that bad even after losing. That’s because of the fact that getting a bye and staying away from gridiron might leave them with a laid-back feeling. As the Longhorns HC stated, “When you play that first weekend in December and then you don’t play again until January 1st. That’s a challenge in it of itself of keeping your team sharp and fresh and attentive to the details and and executing at a high level.” 

Here’ why Sarkisian consider themselves to be “pretty fortunate.” On the other hand, the winners are already feeling the heat. For instance, Georgia will be playing next on January 1. Dan Lanning’s Oregon Ducks will be playing on January 2, Arizona State Sun Devils has their next face-off on January 1, and Boise State’s next game on December 31. A CFB analyst too feels that the loss has been a boon for the Longhorns.  

The unexpected advantage for Steve Sarkisian’s Longhorns  

Now we need to take a look at the calculations! All over the years, every seed from No.1 through No.8 has found themselves lucky to have the National Championship under their control. However, there has been one exception. That’s the No.5 seed. And as we all know, this season, the Longhorns have been the unlucky ones. But there is no point in looming over the facts that are not in their control. That’s when analyst Adam Breneman stated, “I think the five seed actually has the easiest path in the college football playoff or one of the easiest.”

On the podcast, the analyst further dropped some motivation for Sarkisian and Co., “Then they get to play the number four seed. Remember, the four seed in the college football playoff is not necessarily the fourth-best team, they are the 4th best conference champ. This year, the four seed is Arizona State.” Looks like, Breneman is too sure that Arizona State would lose. That’s because of the same reason that Sarkisian stated. 

Kenny Dillingham and the Sun Devils had a long layoff of over four weeks. So, it’s likely that they might have lost track. In that case, the Longhorns being very much attached with their gridiron action would find it easy to handle the No.8 and No.9 seed. Just when Steve Sarkisian thought that everything was sorted, he got a new problem to handle, the QB drama.