Texas beat Alabama on Saturday, 34-24 in convincing fashion. Quinn Ewers tossed for 349 yards and three touchdowns in the win.

With Alabama football now two years removed from its 2021 College Football Championship win, some think that the loss to Texas was an indicator that the current, long-standing era of Crimson Tide football might finally be coming to an end.

It was certainly a proclamation for head coach Steve Sarkisian, who spent part of his coaching career with the Tide.

Paul Finebuam, though, thinks it instead indicates something else: The true arrival of the Texas Longhorns.

Paul Finebaum thinks Longhorns have arrived and should be considered top-4 team

How Finebaum assessed the Longhorns huge win over Alabama on Saturday is telling for how they might shake out in the next AP Top 25 poll.

"I think we can all collectively say Texas is back and they're in the top four, there's no getting around that. When you go into Bryant-Denny Stadium and do what just a handful of teams in the Saban era have done, you deserve considerable kudos. They not only won the game by double digits, they dominated the game. This game really should have been a much bigger beatdown but if you look at the top four right now, clearly Georgia is there, Michigan. But Texas and Florida State have snuck in. I know a lot of people are asking about Ohio State and Southern Cal. They're right outside of that," Finebaum said on ESPN, H/T On3.

Top four for Texas? It could happen. Our projected Top 25 has the Longhorns coming in within the top-four. Coming into Week 2, they were ranked ninth.

Texas went on the road and won convincingly. Impressively, the hostile home Alabama crowd didn't rattle Texas, as they only took four penalties to Bama's 10.

This was the biggest game on the Longhorns schedule, and they showed up ready to rock. They've given their proof for their inclusion in the upper echelon of the Top-25 early on, and it's going to take a big loss to prove they aren't worthy of staying there.