Longhorns 'Don't Fear' Alabama, Ready To Throw 'Haymakers'

The Texas Longhorns are seven-point underdogs against the Alabama Crimson Tide, but they aren't focused on the outside perception of their program in this game whatsoever.

Texas Longhorns head coach Steve Sarkisian joined ESPN's "College GameDay" Saturday morning for approximately four minutes — and he was booed by the Alabama Crimson Tide crowd for four-straight minutes.

Sarkisian talked about the Longhorns' mindset and how they want to "attack" Alabama in all three phases of the game, and he said that begins from the opening kickoff.

"We can't wait. We can't throw jabs," Sarkisian said. "We've got to go into this game, and we've got to try to step in the middle of the ring and start throwing haymakers."

ESPN "College GameDay" co-host Kirk Herbstreit said earlier this week that when the Alabama home crowd feels "threatened," they ramp up the energy a bit. Sarkisian, who was the Crimson Tide offensive coordinator from 2019-20, understands the intensity of the Bryant-Denny Stadium crowd will be cranked up to 11 and that the Longhorns will have to temper their emotions a bit.

"We got to make sure that our energy, our juices is right," Sarkisian said. "We got to make sure that we don't become emotional because, when that happens, we start making poor choices and decisions."

Sarkisian said "win, lose or draw" the Longhorns' matchup against the Crimson Tide will be a "good benchmark" to see how they stack up within the college football landscape in their "quest" to win a Big 12 Championship.

However, just because Texas is the underdog, doesn't mean it will back down to the challenge Saturday at 6 p.m. CT.

"We respect the University of Alabama and you guys know how I feel about coach Saban, the job that he's done there, their players," Sarkisian said. "But the key to the drill is we don't fear them, and we can't fear anybody. We respect all; we fear none. And that's the mindset going into the ballgame."