Home in San Antone: Texas will make another trip to Alamo Bowl to face No. 12 Washington

For the third time in the last four years, Texas will end its season in San Antonio.

The Longhorns will face Washington in the Alamo Bowl at the Alamodome in San Antonio on Dec. 29. Invitations were sent out on Sunday. This will be the sixth Alamo Bowl all-time for Texas, which made its first appearance in 1993 and its most recent in 2019 and 2020. Texas did not qualify for a bowl game in 2021.

"We're very fortunate to be invited to this ballgame," Texas coach Steve Sarkisian said during the bowl game's post-reveal press conference. "Looking forward to the opportunity of continuing the legacy of great bowl games here at the Valero Alamo Bowl."

While the Alamodome should be quite familiar to UT fans, Texas' opponent won't be. The Longhorns and Huskies have played each other only four times and haven't met since the 2001 Holiday Bowl. Twenty-one years later, Washington boasts a 10-2 record. Texas is 8-4.

Washington on Sunday finished as the No. 12 team in the country in the final Top 25 poll of the regular season. Texas is No. 21. The Longhorns finished in third place in the Big 12 this year. Washington tied for second in the Pac-12 but lost out on a three-team tiebreaker that sent Utah to the conference championship game.

Washington and Texas are respectively averaging 40.8 and 35.7 points per game, and both top-20 scoring offenses are led by a potential first-round pick in the upcoming NFL draft. Washington quarterback Michael Penix Jr., who has thrown for a nation-leading 4,354 yards and 29 touchdowns, has told reporters that he will participate in the Huskies’ bowl game. No FBS player has combined for more rushing and receiving yards than Bijan Robinson, but the Texas running back has not yet announced his plans for the postseason.

Then there’s the Sarkisian angle.

Washington gave UT’s head coach his first head coaching opportunity. Back in 2009, he took over a Huskies squad that had gone winless the season before. From 2009-13 he went 34-29 with Washington, and his 2011 team played in the Alamo Bowl.

When asked about his old team on Sunday, Sarkisian said that "Coach (Kalen) DeBoer's done a fantastic job. These guys can light up the scoreboard quickly. ... I know this about the University of Washington: there's a lot of pride in that program, it's a great history and tradition, great fan base. It's gonna be a heck of a challenge for us."

In recent years, many NFL prospects have passed on playing in their final bowl games. Two years ago, Texas standouts Caden Sterns, Samuel Cosmi, Ta'Quon Graham and Joseph Ossai all opted out of the Alamo Bowl.

Will any Longhorns skip this year's trip to San Antonio to get a head start on their draft prep? None have said yet. But that possibility looms for players like Robinson and fellow running back Roschon Johnson. Last week, Sarkisian was asked about the concept of opt-outs.

"For some guys, they should play," he said. "It's an opportunity to play against a good opponent. It's an opportunity to put their film on tape one more time to get evaluated by the NFL. For other guys, maybe it is in their best interest not to play. There's risk and reward and all this. I try to have candid conversations with all of them individually to hopefully come to really good decisions.

"I hate it for them," Sarkisian added. "I wish we could ensure everybody that if something were to happen, you'd be taken care of. Unfortunately that's not the case for every single player. Everybody has kind of their value as it pertains to insurance policies, but we try to do the best we can."

Alamo Bowl

Texas (8-4) vs. Washington (10-2), 8 p.m. Dec. 29, The Alamodome, tv/104.9

This article originally appeared on Austin American-Statesman: Alamo Bowl features showdown between Texas, Washington football teams