Steve Sarkisian and his Texas program enter the 2023 season in an interesting position. The Longhorns will spend one final season in Big 12 play before leaving the league to join the SEC in 2024.

As for expectations of the Longhorns, the team went 8-5 a season ago after a 5-7 mark in his first season with the program. During the latest episode of the Always College Football Podcast with Greg McElroy, Sarkisian was asked about Big 12 teams looking to give Texas their best blow in hopes of sending the Longhorns out of the Big 12 with a loss.

Sarkisian feels his team is truly prepared to handle that load and honestly sees a team that is on a mission to win the league title in 2023:

“I really feel like our team is on a mission. We’ve been building for this, to win a Big 12 Championship. I felt like we missed an opportunity a year ago to not play for the Big 12 Championship Game because of our own undoing,” said Sarkisian. “We made some mistakes in a couple of games that cost us an opportunity to be in that game, and these guys have been on a mission all winter, all spring.”

To illustrate his point, Sarkisian mentioned the recent 2024 schedule release from the SEC. According to Sarkisian, Longhorn players were quick to ask for the 2023 schedule to be put back up as a reminder of what’s in store this fall.

“It was interesting, we were in a team meeting and I was referencing that ‘Hey, just so you guys are aware they’re going to release the SEC schedule tonight.’ These guys wanted to put out the 2023 schedule to remind everybody who we are playing this year,” Sarkisian explained. “So it didn’t take much. We have great leadership on this team.”

Here’s the full conversation with comments on 2023 beginning around the 18:45 mark: