Texas eliminated from bowl contention after Saturday’s loss to West Virginia

The Texas Longhorns suffered yet another defeat on Saturday, falling 31-23 at the hands of the West Virginia Mountaineers. Driving late in the fourth quarter in an attempt to tie the ballgame, UT quarterback Hudson Card threw three incomplete passes to ultimately seal Texas’ fate.

With that loss, Texas is now 4-7 on the year and has officially been eliminated from bowl eligibility. It’s the first time Texas will miss a bowl game since the 2016 season, a campaign that got then-head coach Charlie Strong fired. Saturday’s setback also marked the team’s seventh straight loss, continuing the program’s longest losing streak since 1956. That was the final year of head coach Ed Price’s tenure in Austin before the program hired legendary head coach Darrell Royal.

This is a steep downturn for a Longhorns team that was at one point 4-1 and showing promise under first-year head coach Steve Sarkisian. Ranked No. 21 in the AP poll heading into the Red River Rivalry game against Oklahoma, the team was leading the Sooners 28-7 at one point before the wheels fell off in that game and ultimately, the season.

Since then, the team has suffered embarrassing losses to the likes of Iowa State and even Kansas on the field and have experienced, let’s just say “turmoil”, with assistant coaches off of it. Now, the Longhorns can only hope to somewhat salvage the doomed campaign with a win over Kansas State to close out the year next Friday.

Sarkisian will most likely get another year to turn things around as not even Texas would fire a coach after year one - right? But the Longhorns have certainly hit rock bottom.