Five years later, Texas is indeed back in the Sugar Bowl — this time eyeing a CFP title

NEW ORLEANS — Sam Ehlinger still hears those words.

Is Texas "baaaaack"?

Five years ago, Ehlinger stood on the podium at the Superdome in New Orleans. He had just quarterbacked the Texas Longhorns to a 28-21 upset of Georgia in the Sugar Bowl — arguably the football program's biggest win in years — and with ESPN reporter Holly Rowe's microphone in his face, the then-sophomore leaned in and crooned, "We're baaaaack."

As most now know, Texas was not back. Ehlinger's declaration became less of a rallying cry and more of a way to mock the Longhorns. Now in his third year with the Indianapolis Colts, Ehlinger said he has heard variations of those words in NFL stadiums across the country.

But after years of wandering through the college football wilderness, No. 3 Texas has reached the semifinals of the College Football Playoff. And perhaps fittingly, that has brought the Longhorns back to the Sugar Bowl.

Texas, champion of the Big 12 and the third overall seed in the CFP, will play No. 2 Washington on Monday night for a berth in next week's national championship game against the winner of Monday's earlier semifinal between No. 1 Michigan and No. 4 Alabama.

So ... is Texas back?

"I can't answer that directly," Ehlinger said in a recent interview with the American-Statesman, not taking the bait. "I think that the program is certainly headed in the right direction. I think coach (Steve) Sarkisian has done a great job in the way that he's building the roster and the culture, and then you throw in the scheme, the battle on both sides of the ball together, and I think they're definitely moving in the right direction. The sky's the limit for where the program can go from here in the next few years."

Since its 34-30 loss to rival Oklahoma in October, Texas has won seven straight games. The Longhorns survived close calls against Houston, Kansas State and TCU during that stretch. UT closed out the regular season with a 57-7 rout of Texas Tech and then rolled over Oklahoma State 49-21 in the Big 12 championship game.

This season, Texas is scoring 36.2 points per game while allowing 17.5. That gives UT the 16th-best scoring offense in college football and the 12th-best scoring defense.

Texas looks like a complete team this season

From afar, Ehlinger has been impressed with what the Longhorns have accomplished. In his mind, "the storyline should be what the guys up front have been able to do on the offensive and defensive lines."

"You look for complete teams when defining what a good team looks like," Ehlinger said. "There's a lot of teams that are really good on offense, there's a lot of teams that are really good on defense, but not both and special teams as well. I think that's a unique thing about this Texas team is they've shown that they can win a defensive shootout. They've shown that they can win an offensive shootout. They've shown they can win with a backup quarterback. So I think it's a very complete team."

Not too long ago, Ehlinger would not have been able to use those words to describe his alma mater. After UT followed up that 2018 Sugar Bowl triumph with back-to-back trips to the Alamo Bowl, head coach Tom Herman was fired and Sarkisian was brought in to run the program. The Longhorns struggled mightily in his first year, finishing 5-7. The next year ended with another Alamo Bowl appearance, but Texas did win eight games while showing signs of improvement. Then came this season, in which UT secured its first CFP berth.

Texas has come a long way since 5-7

So how did Texas go from being a team that lost at home to Kansas in 2021 to one that is within two wins of a national championship? Receiver Xavier Worthy pointed to the team culture installed by Sarkisian.

"I feel like the culture and just like the team's morale changed, and I feel like that was really the biggest part that got us here," Worthy said.

Christian Jones, a sixth-year offensive lineman who is the only remaining link to UT's last Sugar Bowl team, said something similar. He credited a deeper connection between the players for the reversal of fortunes and surmised that it took "a lot of work to get to that point now."

The 5-7 season is "a long way ago, but it's really not," Jones said. "That's just a testament to Coach Sark and all the coaches, all the strength coaches and support staff as well, making sure that we're on the straight and narrow and maximizing every single day. It's a credit to them."

Theorized senior safety Jerrin Thompson: "A bunch of guys stayed bought in. Guys who have stuck around have shown that we have talented players every year, but we showed that we can take the talent and put a lot of effort into it and come away with the wins."

A team with a similar makeup to Texas: Washington

The questions being asked about the Texas turnaround also apply to Washington. Two years ago, the Huskies went 4-8. One of those losses was to Montana — a Football Championship Subdivision powerhouse, not a Football Bowl Subdivision team.

But after Kalen DeBoer took over, Washington won 11 of its 13 games in 2022, including an Alamo Bowl victory over the Longhorns. This season the Huskies won a school-record 13 games and the Pac-12 championship.

"A lot of the players we had in that 4-8 season are still here, and you have to be at the bottom sometimes to win," sixth-year Huskies safety Dominique Hampton said. "It helped us be at the bottom knowing how bad we really want this. We don't want eight L's on our stat sheet. A new coaching staff coming in, new voices, it just gave us all inspiration, and we all locked in and knew we could do this."

On Monday night, the paths that brought a Texas team that went 5-7 in 2021 and a Washington team that went 4-8 that same season back to relevance will intersect in New Orleans. Texas is just two wins away from its first national championship in 18 seasons. Washington last won a title in 1991.

Does Texas have what it takes to win twice more this season? The Longhorns think so.

"We've always been ready; now we've got to put it together," Thompson said. "We're one of the best teams in the country, and we're going to prove that."

Monday's CFP games

Rose Bowl: No. 1 Michigan (13-0) vs. No. 4 Alabama (12-1), 4 p.m., ESPN; Sugar Bowl: No. 2 Washington (13-0) vs. No. 3 Texas (12-1), 7:45 p.m., ESPN, 1300, 98.1, 105.3 (Spanish)

This article originally appeared on Austin American-Statesman: Five years after Sam Ehlinger, Texas football team back at Sugar Bowl