Texas Longhorns cheerleading squad flaunts Week 9 preparation in latest IG post [WATCH]
Football is sort of a religion in the South, and especially in Texas, with the weekends divided as follows: Friday for high school, Saturday for college and Sunday for the pros.
Every aspect of the sport is considered with utmost reverence, including the non-playing pageantry that surrounds the game at every level. Cheerleaders are ubiquitous at every level of the game, from your local high school to the NFL.
Cheerleading squads hold a significant cultural place, and the Texas Longhorns know it. That's why the school flaunts the training of its cheerleading squad through its Instagram accounts. It may surprise many foreigners, but the cheerleaders have access to the same training facilities as the players do.
In the video, you can see the squad, with both male and female cheerleaders, practicing their celebrations pre-game at an indoor University of Texas facility.
Texas Longhorns in Week 9
The Longhorns saw off a difficult encounter against BYU without their starting quarterback Quinn Ewers who came down with a serious but not season-ending injury in Week 9. Steve Sarkisian's team confidently won 35-6.
Backup quarterback Maalik Murphy threw for 170 yards, with two touchdown passes and one interception. Jonathon Brooks ran for 98 yards and one interception.
Unrelated to the Longhorns' performance, but almost as important to their playoff hopes, is the fact that Oklahoma also lost its game. Not only that, but it lost to Kansas, a school Texas easily defeated earlier in the season.
However, there's a caveat to that: In the complicated math of college football, if at the end of the season, there are other one-loss teams besides the Sooners and the Longhorns, a victory over Oklahoma in the Big 12 title game might not be enough to claim a spot in the playoffs
What's ahead for the Longhorns?
Next week, the Longhorns face No. 25 Kansas State. The Wildcats just returned to the playoffs this week, having been dropped in Week 3 of the season after a last-minute loss to Missouri.
It is unknown if Quinn Ewers will be available for the Week 11 clash, as the team is treating the situation on a week-to-week basis.