Somewhere amid the Jahdae Barron interception and subsequent fan revolt that resulted in the overturned defensive pass interference, we should’ve all had the same realization.

Texas, you’re officially petty enough to be in the SEC.

OK, so maybe that shouldn’t have been the only takeaway from that maddening sequence, just like how “Texas wasn’t ready for Georgia’s smoke” shouldn’t have been the only takeaway from what turned into a maddening night for the home team.

The silver lining was indeed Barron and that Longhorns defense. It can be the backbone of a national championship team.

That was the most important question entering the night — was Texas’ defense elite or was it just feasting on weak offenses with inexperienced quarterbacks? I’d argue Saturday night showed far more evidence pointing to the former than the latter.

Why? Didn’t Georgia put up 30 points? What kind of a championship unit allows 30 points in its biggest game of the season?

Dig deeper. Look at the starting field position for UGA in the first half and how those drives ended when it jumped out to that 23-0 lead:

  • UGA 25-yard line: Punt
  • UGA 17-yard line: INT
  • UGA 20-yard line: INT
  • Texas 13-yard line: TD
  • Texas 28-yard line: FG
  • Texas 34-yard line: TD
  • UGA 45-yard line: FG
  • UGA 20-yard line: Punt
  • Texas 30-yard line: FG

On UGA’s 5 scoring drives in the first half, the worst starting field position it had was on its own 45-yard line. On the other 4 scoring drives, it started at the Texas 34-yard line or better. On UGA’s 2 touchdown drives in the first half, it only had to gain a combined 47 yards to reach the end zone.

It’s hard to pitch a shutout when that’s the case. Don’t put that on the Texas defense, who only surrendered 1 TD drive of at least 35 yards.

Granted, it was UGA’s most important sequence of the night because it was an 11-play, 89-yard march right after that aforementioned chaotic Barron interception and subsequent fan revolt went down. It wasn’t a perfect game for the Longhorn defense, who might’ve also benefitted from, as Kirby Smart put it “4 drops” early in the game by UGA pass-catchers.

But for all the talk about UGA’s offense being the first real challenge for the Longhorns, look at some of these final numbers:

  • 4.3 yards/pass attempt
  • 0 TDs, 3 INTs
  • 4 yards/play
  • 1 scrimmage play of 25 yards
  • 0 runs of 20 yards
  • 6-for-17 on 3rd down

If you had told Texas DC Pete Kwiatkowski that his unit would perform like that, he would’ve taken that all day. On most days, you play like that and you’re celebrating a victory. That wasn’t most days. Credit the Georgia defense for that. It was the strongest unit that took the field on Saturday night, and you could argue it was the single best performance by any unit all season.

It’s because of what UGA did to a veteran Texas offense that prompted a realization from Sarkisian.

“We’ve got to get our offense back to executing the way we know how to play,” Sarkisian said Monday (H/T 247sports). “But in the meantime, the defense has got to hold down the fort to make sure that we can play complementary football starting this Saturday.”

“Holding down the fort” in the short term is simple. Sarkisian might as well have said “we need our defense to do what Alabama’s defense couldn’t do against Diego Pavia and get that dude off the field so that Vandy doesn’t have an all-time moment against us.” Again, those are my words, not Sarkisian’s.

The good news for Texas is that through 7 games, that defense now looks more bulletproof than the Alabama unit that self-combusted at the hands of Pavia and Co. in Nashville (allowing Vandy to convert 12-for-18 on 3rd down is the definition of “self-combusting”). That’s not saying much. But again, if you had told Kwiatkowski and Sarkisian back in August that these would be Texas’ defensive numbers heading into late October, they would’ve said “that can be the backbone of a championship team”:

  • 9.7 points/game allowed (No. 1 in FBS)
  • 3.74 yards/play allowed (No. 1 in FBS)
  • 1 passing TD allowed (No. 1 in FBS)
  • 4.5 yards/pass attempt (No. 1 in FBS)
  • 12 20-yard scrimmage plays allowed (No. 1 in FBS)
  • 82.1% stop rate (No. 1 in FBS)
  • 88.6 QB rating allowed (No. 2 in FBS)
  • 1 20-yard run allowed (T-No. 2 in FBS)
  • 3 30-yard passes allowed (T-No. 3 in FBS)
  • 33.3% red-zone TD percentage allowed (No. 3 in FBS)

If you scoffed at those numbers, ask yourself this: Which one of those did you think got exposed against Georgia?

I suppose Texas could’ve done a better job of getting off blocks and made Trevor Etienne’s yards a bit tougher to come by. In a post-Byron Murphy/T’Vondre Sweat world, that was a major question entering 2024. But allowing 87 rushing yards to a guy — that was the most Texas allowed to a player since Colorado State’s Justin Marshall ran for 106 yards in the season opener (66 of those yards came after UT led 31-0) — wasn’t a sign that Texas lacks gap-discipline. If that were the case, the Longhorns would’ve had at least 1 game in which they allowed a team to run for 4 yards per carry. That hasn’t happened in 2024 (it was actually the 15th consecutive game that a team failed to do that against the Longhorns).

We’re nitpicking in the front 7. I’ll still take Anthony Hill Jr. over any linebacker in America, and if you think that Colin Simmons isn’t already a game-wrecker on the defensive line at 18 years old, I don’t know what to tell you.

If there’s any lingering question with Texas’ defense, it’s in the defensive backfield, which could be without 2 key safeties against Vanderbilt if Clemson transfer Andrew Mukuba’s knee injury that he suffered against Georgia is week-to-week. That came after losing safety Derek Williams Jr. to a season-ending injury in the Oklahoma game. But Michael Taaffe and Jelani McDonald have both performed well in their increased roles for a Texas pass defense that’s among the nation’s best.

If that’s the biggest depth issue, that’s not a bad problem to have at this point of the season. Lord knows it could be far worse … like being without your top 5 receivers for the first half of the SEC slate and plummeting to lows so historic that you fire your offensive coordinator before November. You know, not to get specific.

We can all agree on a few things. Texas won’t win a national championship with an offense that struggles like it did on Saturday night. We can also agree it’s better to see those weaknesses in mid-October instead of in December.

But what’s clear as ever is that Texas’ defense isn’t going anywhere. It might have some C+ days moving forward, which is to be expected for any unit. Just don’t take Saturday night’s showing — wherein Texas allowed more points than it had in the previous 4 games combined — as a sign that it was part of the problem.

There’s a fort to be held down; it’s up to the Texas defense to take on that task.