NEW ORLEANS — Texas’ first offensive snap gave a quiet indicator of how things would go in the biggest bowl game since the 2009 championship loss to Alabama.

Center Jake Majors was whistled for an illegal snap infraction. It cost Texas five yards, but what we didn’t know at the time was that the Horns would play one of their sloppiest games of the season at the most inopportune time.

“We dug ourselves a hole with some self-inflicted wounds,” coach Steve Sarkisian said.

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The Longhorns committed 10 penalties for 86 yards in the 37-31 Sugar Bowl loss and looked like a team that hadn’t played a football game in a month. Worse yet, they put it on the ground twice, the biggest coming in the fourth quarter when Jaydon Blue was stripped at the Washington 24-yard line with his team trailing by two scores.

A 12-2 season is Texas' best since the Horns played for a national title in 2009, but they believe their season came up one game short.

When you’re matched up against a high-octane offense like Washington's and the nation’s most prolific passer in Michael Penix, Jr. — he was electric — penalties and turnovers will get you killed. While quarterback Quinn Ewers did his best to produce some holiday magic and set up a Texas-Michigan title game, the Horns put themselves in the unenviable position of having to play perfect football down the stretch.

They weren’t up to the task. It seemed every time the Horns took one step forward, a penalty would knock them two steps.

Sarkisian will clean it up in the offseason and the Horns will be a player moving forward, but they will look back on this one as the game they couldn’t stop a great quarterback as well as their inability to get out of their own way.

This article originally appeared on Austin American-Statesman: Golden: Texas football couldn't overcome miscues in Sugar Bowl loss