In “Great Expectations,” Charles Dickens wrote: “Suffering has been stronger than all other teaching, and has taught me to understand what your heart used to be. I have been bent and broken, but — I hope — into a better shape.”

Chuck never watched a Texas football game, but his words ring true more than 150 years later. The Longhorns’ return to national prominence last season wouldn't have happened without struggle, and now that oddsmakers are projecting a smashing debut for them in the Southeastern Conference, it would be easy to believe it’s going to happen without acknowledging the work it took to get here.

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So Texas goes 11-1 in the regular season and plays for a conference title in its first season in the SEC? Sounds about right to many in the fan base.

Slow down.

Longhorn Nation doesn’t need to prick a finger to believe there’s blue blood coursing through those veins even if the Horns have won only one national championship since 1970. Meanwhile, new conference mates Alabama, LSU, Georgia, Auburn and Florida have combined to win 14 of the last 21 titles, six coming from the Crimson Tide, which enters its first season without legendary coach Nick Saban.

It could happen, but let’s see how the Longhorns handle their first real prosperity since the 2018 team won the Sugar Bowl over the Georgia Bulldogs, the same night Bevo nearly sent Uga X to the Rainbow Bridge well before his time.

Sure, the Longhorns aren’t quietly entering America’s scariest conference like the new kid in a new town, but should the oddsmakers all take a cue from head coach Steve Sarkisian and pump the brakes before declaring Texas is going to march through the SEC like Sherman through Atlanta?

As Sark said at the SEC Celebration: “Easy. Easy.”

There’s lots of football to be played.

Looking to carry that 2023 momentum into 2024

With that said, the Longhorns checked nearly every box in their Big 12 farewell, smoking Oklahoma State in the conference title game and making the program’s first College Football Playoff appearance, and while the past is the past, it does matter that Texas is carrying some nice momentum into the most anticipated season since the 2005 championship campaign.

When Sarkisian leads quarterback Quinn Ewers, defensive back Jahdae Barron and left tackle Kelvin Banks Jr. into Wednesday’s afternoon session of SEC media days in Dallas, it will be with the same confidence we witnessed during last season’s 12-2 run and first Big 12 title since 2009.

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History says to bet the under, not over

Confidence aside, the scenery has changed, and somehow the expectations are even larger than usual.

Las Vegas has projected Texas’ over/under regular-season win total at 10½. In layman’s terms, that means the Horns will win a minimum of 10 games. An "over" bet means Texas will finish either 11-1 or 12-0 while the "under" simply means the Horns will win 10 or fewer games.

Texas and Georgia are two of only six FBS teams that are projected to win at least 10 games, along with Notre Dame, Ohio State, Oregon and Liberty. It’s amazing how often these bookmakers are right on the money, but in Texas’ case, they’ve gotten it wrong more often than not in recent years.

After the Horns went 25-2 in Mack Brown’s last two dominant seasons — 2008 and 2009 were the last time Texas registered consecutive double-digit win seasons — they were 30-21 over his final four seasons, including a mediocre 18-17 record in the Big 12. We all know that Charlie Strong didn’t get it done as Mack's replacement and that Tom Herman never won 10 games in a regular season in four tries, though grace should be given for the 2020 pandemic season, when the Horns played only 10 games and were 7-3.

This is all to say even though the big wins haven’t been there in the past decade-plus, the expectations haven’t changed. The current odds represent the first time the Horns are entering a season expecting to clock double-digit wins since 2013, Mack’s last season. That team went 8-5 and tied for second in the Big 12.

Now, if you ask me — and I know you haven’t — a 9-3 debut in the SEC would be a fine start with the understanding that Texas will play Georgia, which has gone 42-2 over the past three years with a pair of national championships, along with a road game against defending national champion Michigan, the annual neutral site game against Oklahoma, and roadies against Arkansas and Texas A&M.

The Horns don’t have a middle-of-the-road look about them. They will make plenty of noise because the talent is there, albeit without 11 players who will be cashing NFL paychecks this fall. Saban and Georgia’s Kirby Smart made an art form of producing huge draft classes and continuing to win big. It’s time to see if Sarkisian can reload instead of rebuild.

Great expectations are one thing.

Tex-pectations are quite another.

SEC media days

This year's SEC media days will be in Dallas from Monday through Thursday. Texas coach Steve Sarkisian and three players will speak on Wednesday. Follow our staff and network coverage of media days all week on hookem.com.

Teams schedule: Monday — LSU, Ole Miss, South Carolina, Vanderbilt; Tuesday — Georgia, Missouri, Oklahoma, Tennessee; Wednesday — Alabama, Florida, Mississippi State, Texas; Thursday — Arkansas, Auburn, Kentucky, Texas A&M

This article originally appeared on Austin American-Statesman: Longhorns face first SEC football season with high, high expectations