How Luke Harrison Recovered From Rough Start to Lead Texas Past Mississippi State

All season, fifth-year starter Luke Harrison has been a relatively steady presence for the Longhorns.

While not perfect, he’s remained reliable. He entered Sunday’s rubber match against Mississippi State with a 3.93 ERA and a résumé that included some of Texas’ strongest outings this season — including a seven-inning, scoreless performance against Ole Miss.

But with that consistency has come some volatility. Most notably, Harrison was tagged for eight runs in the first inning against Texas A&M earlier this season.

On Sunday, oddly enough, both versions of Harrison showed up on the mound. And in the end, the one Texas needed most took over.

Behind a resilient outing from Harrison and a massive third-inning offensive explosion, the Longhorns erased an early deficit and rolled to an 11-6 win over No. 10 Mississippi State at UFCU Disch-Falk Field, securing their seventh SEC series victory of the season.

Harrison settles in after rocky start

Texas Longhorns pitcher Luke Harrison stares into the box before throwing a pitch. | University of Texas Athletics

The start couldn’t have gone much worse for Harrison.

The left-hander needed 41 pitches to get through the first inning, issuing three walks and allowing five runs — all with two outs. An RBI single from Jacob Parker opened the scoring, but the damage came on a full-count grand slam from Bryce Chance, his first home run of the season.

Just like that, Texas was in a 5-0 hole.

It was the second time in four starts Harrison had allowed five or more runs in the opening frame, leaving the Longhorns with little margin for error the rest of the way. But Harrison looked up to the task.

From the second inning on, Harrison looked like a completely different pitcher. He struck out the side in the second and began carving through Mississippi State’s lineup.

Harrison retired 12 of the next 14 batters he faced, allowing just one hit and no walks between the second and fifth innings. What began as a profoundly dismal and tumultuous outing quickly turned into one of Harrison’s most composed stretches of the season.

"Every experience that he's been through has prepared him for everything that he's going to go through the rest of his career," head coach Jim Schlossnagle said. "So he doesn't panic. He just keeps making pitches."

The strikeouts kept piling up, too.

After recording three in the opening frame, Harrison finished with nine. More importantly, Mississippi State didn’t score again against him, giving the offense plenty of breathing room.

After struggling to capitalize on chances in Saturday’s loss, the Longhorns flipped the script in the third inning. Texas sent 13 batters to the plate and scored nine runs, taking advantage of shaky command from Mississippi State starter Charlie Foster and a taxed bullpen. It marked Texas’ highest-scoring inning of the season.

From there, the Longhorns never looked back, going on to pile two more runs to win the matchup 11-4.

And unfortunately for Harrsion, the stat line won’t fully reflect his impact. Yes, the five-run first inning remains. But without everything that followed, this game could have gotten way further out of hand.

“I’m very proud of the way that I competed today. I think you can look at the line or the ERA or whatever, but I really felt like my response today was just a lot about who I am as a competitor," Harrison said. “That’s something I can lay my head on a pillow at night and be very, very proud of.”

And without that bounce-back performance, the rest of the season could have looked much more nerve-racking for the Longhorns. But now with the win, Texas remains firmly in second place in SEC standings and primed for a top-8 national seed.

Much of that had to do with Harrison's composure and just complete grit.

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