College football today - Week 2 takeaways and insights

Texas is not back.

Not on Saturday, anyway. Not without its burgeoning star QB, Quinn Ewers. Not on Nick Saban's watch.

But for much of the 12 years since Texas last played Alabama — another game in which it lost its starting quarterback — the Longhorns have served as a national punchline, with «Texas is back!» the easiest joke in college football. (Though, credit to Texas for providing plenty of other material, from «OK, cool. Hook 'em» to multiple losses to Kansas to an attack monkey trained to steal Halloween candy. It's been a wild a decade.) And yet, Texas was no joke Saturday. It was a worthy competitor for a team many expect to win a national title. It was a team that, with Ewers — or, perhaps, a properly called safety in the end zone in the third quarter — might've pulled the upset.

Alabama escapes a safety after DeMarvion Overshown is penalized with a roughing the passer call on Bryce Young.

Instead, it was still a loss, the seventh in the past nine games for Texas. But the feeling in the aftermath isn't the familiar aura of malaise. No, as the Gen Z kids would say, Saturday felt like a genuine vibe shift.

It should be said that Alabama still has the true legends on its side. Bryce Young once again delivered as compelling a performance as a quarterback is capable of delivering when it mattered most. Young accounted for 68 yards on Alabama's gotta-have-it 11-play touchdown drive with 8:29 to go, a merciless shredding of a Texas defense that had been dominant to that point. Then, after the Longhorns took a two-point lead with 1:29 play, Young delivered again, a Houdini-esque escape from a sack turning into a 20-yard gain that set up the game-winning field goal.

«When his best was needed,» Saban said after the