After a 38-24 win over No. 12 seed Clemson, No. 5 Texas (12-2) is headed to the Chick-fil-A Peach Bowl to face the fourth-ranked Arizona State Sun Devils (11-2), the champions of the Big 12.
While some in the media might try and convince you that being the Big 12 Champion makes Arizona State a lesser challenge, Longhorns’ head coach Steve Sarkisian isn’t buying into that narrative.
Sark coached in the Big 12 for three seasons and won the final Big 12 Championship of Texas’ time in the conference. However, as he pointed out recently when meeting with the media, the fact that Arizona State won the conference, and did so in their first year of membership, speaks to just how good the Sun Devils are.
“We obviously have a ton of respect for Arizona State and the job Coach Dillingham has done,” Sarkisian said at the Peach Bowl press conference. “They’re a very good football team. You don’t win the Big 12, as we know how hard that is around here to win a Big 12 Championship, and doing it in their first year in the conference, his second year at Arizona State, is a heck of an accomplishment.”
He doubled down on how big a challenge he’ll face against an ASU team that finished the regular season playing as good as anyone in the country.
“This is a heck of a challenge. You don’t — you’re not a conference championship team, especially in the Big 12 — I want to remind everybody, we were in that Big 12, what, for 27 years? We won four. This is their first year in and they won a Big 12 Championship. It’s a really hard thing to do,” Sarkisian said.
“They’re playing with a ton of confidence right now. The last two months, I think they’re playing as good a football as anybody in the country, and that’s a credit to Coach Dillingham and their staff and building their team as they’ve gotten better and better as the year has gone on, and it’s clear as day to see when you watch the tape. This is a heck of a challenge for us.”
Texas is heavily favored in the matchup, opening up with a 12.5-point line on Sunday, and has already swelled to a 14-point favorite as of Monday afternoon.
Texas (12-2) and Arizona State (11-2) are set to kickoff at 12:00 p.m. CT on Wednesday, January 1, 2025, in the Mercedes-Benz Stadium in Atlanta, GA.
