Cotton Bowl

AUSTIN — The Cotton Bowl will not be a home game for Texas this Friday (6:30 p.m., TV: ESPN, Radio: The Team 92.1-FM).

But it might be the second-best thing if Longhorn Nation arrives in force for Texas’ College Football Playoff semifinal against Ohio State at AT&T Stadium in Arlington.

“I think the Nation will show up,” Texas athletic director Chris Del Conte said Monday. “These are two incredible brands playing for the opportunity to play for the national championship.”

So does he expect Texas fans to outnumber Ohio State patrons?

“I think the Nation will show up,” he repeated. “I’m excited. I like the fact they’re counting us out.”

Historically, Texas has always traveled well to glamorous destinations and for meaningful games. But so does Ohio State.

In fact, a Players’ Tribune survey of 68 football players whose careers spanned 2001-2021 named the Buckeye faithful as the fan base that travels the best. I wouldn’t bet against Ohio State matching Texas’ fan following Friday.

Steve Sarkisian downplayed any advantage for his team, which is a 6 1/2 -point underdog against the Buckeyes.

“I think both schools get the same number of tickets,” Sarkisian said.

He’s right. Both teams do get 13,000 each.

The rest of the tickets for the 80,000-seat AT&T Stadium — it can cram in 100,000-plus if there’s demand — are distributed among Cotton Bowl season ticket-holders, sponsors and the secondary market.

The two schools in the national championship game in Atlanta on Jan. 20 will each be allotted 20,000 tickets. Mercedes-Benz Stadium seats 71,000-plus. Who knows the number of fans who may pass up this game or previous ones to save up for the natty. The Peach Bowl crowd was announced as 71,105 but there were lots of empty seats.

Texas has shown up in droves in the playoffs but was seriously outnumbered maybe 70-30 by Georgia in the SEC title game in the Bulldogs’ backyard in Atlanta.

The unprecedented cost for fans with 12 regular-season games, conference title games and potentially four College Football Playoff games is significantly impacting fans’ pocketbooks. To what extent is anyone’s guess.

That alone will lead to vigorous discussion of the format in the offseason. It says here conference commissioners and university presidents should strongly consider expanding the use of on-campus home games through the quarterfinals and then rotating the semifinals and finals among the six historic New Year’s Six bowl sites.

“It’s been great to have games on home campuses,” Del Conte said. “There’s always second-guessing, but the playoffs have exceeded my expectations. I’m a big fan of home playoff games on campuses. It’s different. It’s exciting.”

It’s entirely possible the Longhorns could make the Arlington venue their home away from home when they “host” Ohio State.

Texas is officially the home team, but the Buckeyes will dress out in their traditional home uniform with classic scarlet tops and gray pants despite being the away team. And the Longhorns know they’re an impressive 18-3 at home the past three seasons, losing only to Georgia, Alabama and national finalist TCU.

The Buckeyes, whose fan base travels maybe as well as any college team in the country, may not accept that they aren’t the home team. They won their last national championship there in 2014 with some offensive coordinator named Tom Herman.

And they actually have played at AT&T more recently than the Longhorns, having lost with less than a full squad to Missouri in last season’s Cotton Bowl while Texas drubbed Oklahoma State in the 2023 Big 12 championship game. The Longhorn fans were so feeling it, they drowned out Big 12 commissioner and Enemy No. 1 Brett Yormark during the trophy ceremony. Can they be that loud again?

However, I still recall when Ohio State played the defending national champion Longhorns at Darrell K Royal-Texas Memorial Stadium in Week 2 of the 2006 season and beat Texas 24-7, a minimum of 10,000 Ohio State fans arrived in Austin. Without tickets.

They just wanted to be in the same area code as their beloved team and hung out on campus and at local watering holes.

Of course, it should be pointed out that Ohio State won in Austin one year after Texas won in Columbus en route to its last national title. So there’s that.

Ryan Day subscribes to that line of thinking.

“There’s a lot of history there,” the Ohio State coach said Friday. “And I don’t think that really has anything to do with anything, quite honestly. We’ve got to go play on the field, but it’s a great venue.”

The man’s got a point. Playing on the road sure didn’t bother Michigan when the Wolverines ventured into Ohio Stadium and put a whipping on the Buckeyes, their only loss in nine home games.

In fact, sometimes playing at home can work against a team because of the undue pressure it feels.

The Texas players all said the familiarity with the Dallas Cowboys’ stadium should bode well for them but stopped short of saying it promises to be an edge for them.

Call it a close-to-home-field advantage.

There’s also Texas’ history in the Cotton Bowl. No team has played in more Cotton Bowls than the Longhorns, who are 11-10-1 there, but none of those games were at AT&T. All were played at Fair Park in Dallas.

But a number of Longhorns have played at Jerry World.

Both safety Michael Taaffe (Austin Westlake) and linebacker Anthony Hill Jr. (Denton Ryan) said it’ll be good to play in a venue where both won state championships in high school.

Taaffe is, in fact, undefeated at AT&T Stadium after winning the 2020 Class 6A Division I state championship against Southlake Carroll there.

“Yeah, I think it gets those nerves out a little bit when you know what the stadium looks like, what the atmosphere is, what the air smells like in that dome or that stadium,” Taaffe said.

The air smells like?

May have the scent of defeat since the Cowboys haven’t exactly killed it there recently.

But Taaffe does think some of his teammates will be more than a little comfortable in the facility.

“So you think those nerves kind of rush out,” he said. “It’s good to have nerves. I truly believe that. But too much built-up nerves where you’re not playing your game because you’re thinking about something else, I think that’s where it can go wrong. And when you have that familiarity, then those nerves kind of subside.”

That could be important because the Buckeyes deep down might bring more confidence than the Longhorns, who blew a 16-point fourth-quarter lead in their last game and have concerns about their run game, their kicker, their third-quarter funks, their special teams and at times the play-calling.

Otherwise, they’re fine.

“We’re going to need our fans,” Sarkisian said. “We’re going to need our fan support. I need Longhorn Nation to show out in Arlington. Clearly we’re massive underdogs. Nobody’s going to give us a shot. So we’re going to need all that.”

Maybe Texas should invite Yormark to show up for good measure.