No. 1 Texas left its first game as the nation’s top-ranked team with a 30-6 win over UTSA, and while the Longhorns finished non-conference play unbeaten, the performance didn’t exactly come wrapped in polish. The defense looked far more settled, the backfield showed another layer, but the offense still spent too much of the night searching for a clean rhythm.
The biggest question hanging over Texas right now is whether the offense has actually been fixed. That uncertainty was already there after the Ohio State game, and it didn’t go away against the Roadrunners.
Through three quarters, the Longhorns had only 299 yards at 4.6 yards per play and had put up 23 points against a UTSA defense that allowed 26 to Texas State the week before. The ground game held up well enough with 138 yards, but Arch Manning and the passing attack never really clicked.
Manning finished 16 of 32 for 161 yards and two touchdowns, good for 5.03 yards per dropback, but the numbers came with a lot of empty stretches in between. He didn’t settle in until late, and after his second touchdown pass, he was just 4-for-14 for 40 yards. During that span, he also put together incompletion streaks of three and four straight attempts.
Texas did, however, uncover something else in the backfield. Steve Sarkisian made a clear effort to involve Derrick Cooper Jr. after he had seen limited early action because of injury, and the freshman delivered on the Longhorns’ first touchdown drive of the second half.
Seven of the nine plays on that march were handoffs to Cooper, who helped push the drive 33 yards and finished it with a touchdown. He ended the night with 11 carries for 44 yards, averaging four yards per rush, and gave Texas the look of a legitimate third option at running back.
The co-starters handled their share too. Hollywood Smothers carried 10 times for 54 yards, while Raleek Brown added 10 rushes for 41 yards.
If the offense was uneven, the defense looked much closer to the version Texas wanted to show. After getting picked apart by Jeremiah Smith a week earlier, the Longhorns completely smothered a UTSA attack that had averaged 38 points per game in its first two outings.
Texas held the Roadrunners to 143 total yards and kept quarterback Owen McCown under wraps for most of the night. McCown exited in the fourth quarter with 70 passing yards and an interception, and he didn’t complete back-to-back passes until the 13:40 mark of the third quarter, when he connected with DJ Allen for 12 yards.
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Texas Was Right There For A Statement Win Against Tennessee
Texas had a real chance to turn Saturday into something bigger than a point. In an SEC home match at Mike A. Myers Stadium, the Longhorns played Tennessee to a 2-2 draw, and for long stretches they looked capable of handing the Volunteers their toughest night of the season. Florida State transfers Mya Brandon and Ashlyn Anderson provided the offense, and Texas became the first team to lead Tennessee this year.
The game changed late when Texas was shown a red card, leaving it to defend short-handed for the final 20 minutes. Even so, the Longhorns did enough to keep Tennessee from breaking away and walk off with a result that felt both encouraging and frustrating. For a Texas team trying to establish itself in conference play, this was the kind of match that showed it can hang with one of the leagues best, while still leaving room to wonder what might have been with a full lineup. [Read more 🡒]
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Mannings overall run as QB1 has been just as steady, with the Longhorns winning 14 of his starts against only three losses. For a program measured against its own quarterback legends, the conversation is no longer just about individual moments but about where this path can lead if he keeps pushing Texas into championship position. The next step is what would really separate a promising chapter from a legacy-defining one, and Longhorns fans know exactly what kind of finish would place him alongside the all-time greats. [Read more 🡒]
Texas Just Added Another Loaded Hall Of Honor Class
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The latest class gives Texas another chance to celebrate the people who helped build that tradition across multiple eras and sports. The honorees will also get a public nod at Darrell K Royal-Texas Memorial Stadium when the Longhorns face UTSA, adding a football-stage moment to a ceremony that already tied together plenty of different corners of the programs past. [Read more 🡒]