Texas has already shown Steve Sarkisian that it can handle itself away from home, and that’s exactly why the Longhorns are walking into Tiger Stadium with confidence.
Since Sarkisian took over in 2022, Texas has gone 15-5 on the road. That number is solid, but the more telling figure is the 7-3 mark against top 25 opponents.
Now the No. 8 Longhorns (7-2, 4-2 SEC) get another crack at that kind of test Saturday night when No.
24 LSU (6-3, 3-3 SEC) hosts them in Baton Rouge at 6:30 p.m. on ABC.
“I think our guys love it honestly,” Sarkisian said Monday. “There’s something different when you’re on the road.”
Part of that difference is physical, and Sarkisian didn’t sugarcoat it. Texas will leave behind the spacious setup at Darrell K Royal-Texas Memorial Stadium and head into the more “intimate” visiting quarters at Tiger Stadium. The Longhorns also won’t be able to bring their full roster, with SEC travel rules limiting them to 74 of their 105 players.
Sarkisian sees that as more of a bonding exercise than a setback.
“You really want to lean into one another, and so sometimes being smaller, being tighter allows us to feel one another,” he said.
The Longhorns’ recent road work gives that belief some real weight. They were unbeaten away from home in 2023 and 2024, after dropping two road games in Sarkisian’s first season - a 37-34 overtime loss at Texas Tech and a 41-34 defeat at No.
11 Oklahoma State. Last year, Texas went 2-3 on the road, with losses at No.
3 Ohio State (14-7), No. 5 Georgia (35-10), and in a 29-21 stumble at unranked Florida in the SEC opener.
This season, though, Texas has already handled two tough road environments. The Longhorns beat Tennessee 20-17 and Missouri 34-20, with both teams ranked at the time - No. 14 and No. 18, respectively. Sarkisian said that kind of track record helps the group trust what it’s doing.
“It’s not foreign to us,” he said. “Going into these games we don’t make them bigger than they are.
Clearly they’re all big games at this juncture of the season, but we don’t do stuff new. We don’t do it different.
We don’t change our travel plans. We don’t change our meeting schedule.
We don’t order special cleats because it’s a big game. We do what we do.”
LSU, meanwhile, is trying to recover from its first home loss of the season, a 31-13 defeat to Alabama last week. The Tigers are now 29-4 in “Death Valley” since 2022, with the four losses coming against Alabama twice, Texas A&M last season and Tennessee in 2022.
“That’s bad, and I feel bad for our fans, for the state,” Kiffin said Monday. “We’re supposed to win when we come here. We’re certainly not supposed to score 13 points in the game ever.”
Kiffin’s own home record has been strong for years. Before that Alabama loss, he was 26-1 at home over the last four seasons dating back to his Ole Miss tenure, and he had won his previous 16 home games.
“That’s not the expectations we have, what we’re used to, and not what it’s going to be like here,” Kiffin said.
Saturday’s crowd should have a say early. Against Alabama, LSU fans helped create problems for the Tide through the first three quarters, with false starts and pre-snap mistakes piling up. But the energy faded late, and the stadium emptied in the fourth quarter.
Sarkisian is hoping Texas can help bring that kind of shift on the road, too.
“There is something to when you can quiet a crowd,” Sarkisian said. “There’s something empowering about that, and I think our guys can use that as some fuel as well.”
In Other News...
Will Wade Sent LSU A Warning After That Blowout
A lopsided win over Texas Southern did not leave Will Wade sounding particularly satisfied, and that was the point. LSU got the kind of result that usually calms a coach down, but Wade instead used the postgame mood to stress how much sharper the Tigers need to be before the schedule tightens up with Louisiana Tech and Gonzaga looming next.
Donovan Dent said Wade has kept the focus on concentration, and the issues the coach pointed to were the kind that tend to matter more once the competition rises. LSU had offensive inefficiencies and turnovers in the blowout, and Wade made it clear those mistakes cannot linger if the Tigers want to be ready for stronger opponents. [Read more 🡒]
Lane Kiffin Defends LSU Spectacle After Alabama Loss Questions
The scene around LSU football has become part of the product, and Lane Kiffin made it clear he sees that as a feature, not a flaw. With celebrities like Kevin Costner, Shaquille ONeal, Paul Skenes, Angel Reese and Olivia Dunne in the building for the Alabama game, along with the kind of sideline pageantry that tends to draw attention, Kiffin said those moments are designed to help recruiting and shape how the program is viewed nationally.
Even with the loss to Alabama and the inevitable noise that followed, Kiffin pushed the focus back toward the bigger picture. His point was simple enough: if LSU wants to sell itself as a destination, it has to embrace the spotlight and not get bogged down by outside criticism, even when the spectacle becomes part of the conversation. [Read more 🡒]
LSU Moved The Ball All Night But One Problem Ruined It
LSU moved the ball well enough to make the final score feel a little deceptive, but the Tigers still walked away with a 31-13 loss to Alabama after failing to turn all that production into enough points. Sam Leavitt threw for 380 yards and LSU actually outgained the Crimson Tide in total offense, while Jackson Harris was a steady target with 11 catches for 166 yards. Even with Dilin Jones finding the end zone and the special teams adding six points, the Tigers could never fully cash in on drives that kept producing yards but not enough damage.
The biggest issue was the kind of imbalance that can sink a night like this. LSU's offensive line struggled to open rushing lanes and gave up four sacks, leaving the ground game stuck behind the passing attack, while Alabama's defense kept the Tigers from finishing possessions cleanly. On the other side, LSU's front did its part against the run, but the secondary gave up three passing touchdowns, and that combination left a strong yardage total with very little to show for it. [Read more 🡒]