Saturday’s SEC matchup between Texas and LSU has all the ingredients of a Week 11 spotlight game, and the pressure sits squarely on the Tigers.
Texas enters after a rocky stretch that knocked the Longhorns from the top spot in the country. They dropped back-to-back games to Oklahoma and Florida, then steadied themselves with three straight wins. Now comes a far stiffer challenge on the road.
LSU, meanwhile, is trying to keep its College Football Playoff hopes from slipping away after a 31-13 loss to Alabama. The margin for error is gone. If the Tigers want to stay alive, this is the kind of game they have to win.
Arch Manning has been a big reason Texas has bounced back. Just like last season, he’s looked sharper in the second half of the year after a slow start.
Over the last two weeks, he has thrown for 517 yards, six touchdowns and no interceptions. If that run continues, Texas will be in the playoff mix.
Even with that surge, this feels like a spot to cool on the Longhorns. Texas has improved, but the underlying numbers still lag behind the recent results. The Longhorns rank 99th in EPA per play and 70th in success rate, and now they’re walking into a defense that ranks 10th in opponent EPA per play and 14th in defensive success rate.
LSU’s loss to Alabama doesn’t erase what the Tigers have been doing overall. They still come into this week ranked first in the country in net adjusted EPA per play and sixth in net success rate. That’s why the call here is to back LSU and lay the points.
In Other News...
Texas Win Has The SEC Facing An Officiating Debate
The Longhorns 34-20 win over Missouri did more than tighten Texas grip on the SEC race. It also left the league with an officiating debate after a game that featured multiple contested calls, including a disputed fumble ruling involving Arch Manning. For Texas, the result stood as a significant road win, but the conversation afterward quickly shifted from the scoreboard to how the game was handled.
Eli Drinkwitz was careful in his postgame remarks, but Missouris frustration did not stop there. Athletics director Laird Veatch later pushed the SEC to be more transparent about replay decisions, arguing that the lack of clarity only fuels speculation and mistrust. For a conference already under a microscope, the fallout from this one is likely to linger well beyond the final whistle. [Read more 🡒]
Texas Keeps Gaining Ground As Bigger Tests Suddenly Loom
Texas kept its upward climb going with a 34-20 road win at No. 19 Missouri, a result that pushed the Longhorns up two spots to No. 8 in the latest AP Top 25 Poll. It was the third straight week Texas has moved higher in the rankings, and the national picture around it shifted plenty as well, with Georgia taking over the No. 1 spot after Miamis loss to Notre Dame.
The Longhorns also landed at No. 7 in the College Football Playoff committees initial rankings, a sign that both major polls are starting to view them as a legitimate contender. Ohio States tumble after losing to Oregon only added to the shakeup, but Texas will have little time to enjoy the climb with bigger tests now waiting on the schedule and a chance to prove this rise is more than a November surge. [Read more 🡒]
Texas Survived A Brutal SEC Opener In The Most Tense Way
Texas opened its SEC Tournament run the hard way, grinding through a scoreless draw with Mississippi State before finally surviving in a penalty-kick shootout. No. 9 Texas controlled the flow for much of the match, finishing with the edge in possession and shots, but the breakthrough never came in regulation or extra time, turning the opener into a nerve test from start to finish.
Amalia Villarreal delivered the decisive penalty to send the Longhorns into the quarterfinals, where the challenge only gets steeper. Texas now moves on to face No. 1 seed Vanderbilt, with the kind of tense, high-leverage win that can either settle a team in or leave it needing to recover quickly for the next round. [Read more 🡒]