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This is an opinion column.

This week represents Texas’ first trip to Tuscaloosa since 1902. For the record, Texas defeated Alabama 10-0 way back then.

These 121 years later, one of the most significant games in the history of the Southeastern Conference will be played at Bryant-Denny Stadium on Saturday when No.11 Texas (1-0) visits No.4 Alabama (1-0). The players and coaches might try to call it “just another game on the schedule.” We know better, of course. In reality, there is more at stake in this game than a victory against a ranked non-conference opponent or even early-season implications for the College Football Playoff.

Texas is joining the SEC in 2024, and the Longhorns have plans of overtaking Alabama as the South’s preeminent college football superpower. A win at Alabama would put the Longhorns on that path and maybe even signal the beginning of the end for Nick Saban’s dynasty in the process.

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Is the curtain call here for Saban’s Alabama as we know? We’ll have a better idea by Saturday night, and Saban will be putting it all on the line with a quarterback from Katy, Texas, who grew up a fan of the Longhorns.

We witnessed some shocking, landscape-rumbling upsets in the first full week of the 2023 college football season. Colorado and coach Deion Sanders went to TCU as 28-point underdogs and left Fort Worth as the biggest story in the sport. On Sunday, FSU announced its return and exposed LSU in the process. On Monday night, Clemson went to Duke and left Dabo Swinney’s soul on the footsteps of Wallace Wade Stadium.

What’s next?

College football is shifting under the weight of its many changes, and Texas knocking off Alabama on the eve of joining the SEC has the potential to reshape the hierarchy of the most powerful conference in the sport. This is a non-conference game in name only. When it comes to recruiting, Texas and Oklahoma have already joined the SEC.

Make no mistake about this. When the Longhorns arrive in Tuscaloosa, Texas will be taking aim at the history of the game, the future of the SEC and the long reign of Alabama. It all began with that victory against Texas in the 2010 BCS national championship at the Rose Bowl, and it could all end with a loss to Texas at Bryant-Denny Stadium.

For Texas, the stakes of this game feel a lot like Alabama’s famous trip out West way back in 1926. The Crimson Tide’s victory against Washington in the Rose Bowl has been called “The Game that Changed the South.” It was Alabama’s first bowl game and first national championship. The Crimson Tide was celebrated throughout the South on its train trip back to Alabama. It was there, at train stops throughout the South, where Alabama first found a foothold to become a regional superpower in college football.

Texas is coming for that mystique and that crown and the bejeweled recruits that would decorate it. People may hate the current state of conference realignment, but this is the type of game that fuels a sport for generations.

And isn’t it something more than curious that Texas and Alabama agreed to a home-and-home series that lined up perfectly with Texas joining the SEC?

As SEC conspiracy theories go, here’s a good one.

It’s no secret that Texas wanted to hire Nick Saban in 2013. Alabama held off the Longhorns 10 years ago, but Bevo kept coming. Instead of stealing Saban away from Alabama, Texas began making plans to rip the cape off of the Crimson Tide in a more meaningful way.

If Texas wanted to overtake Alabama as the South’s college football superpower, then this would be a pretty good game plan:

— 2018: Schedule a game in Tuscaloosa for 2023.

— 2020: Reveal plans to join the SEC.

— 2021: Hire Saban’s offensive coordinator as head coach.

— 2022: Lock down Arch Manning as the quarterback of the future.

— 2023: Upset Alabama in Tuscaloosa.

— 2024: Texas two-step into the SEC while Saban’s career approaches its last dance.

Texas joining the SEC isn’t about the Longhorns taking back Texas from Texas A&M. Right or wrong, Texas will always look down at the Aggies and see itself as superior to its instate competition. Alabama is the real prize, and the Longhorns have engineered a way to overtake the Tide.

Texas is inevitable. That’s what people in Austin have always wanted to believe. Good luck keeping the Horns down if it’s Horns Up against Alabama.

Joseph Goodman is the lead sports columnist for the Alabama Media Group, and author of “We Want Bama”, a book about togetherness, hope and rum. You can find him on Twitter @JoeGoodmanJr.