Texas has gone from the No. 1 team in the AP Poll to a place no program wants to be in just one week.
Seven days after being shocked by unranked Oklahoma, the Longhorns dropped again on Saturday, this time falling to unranked Florida. The two straight defeats have pushed Steve Sarkisian’s team into rare and unwanted territory.
According to CBS Sports research, Texas is the first team since 1961 Michigan State to enter a game ranked No. 1 in the AP Poll and then lose its next two games against unranked opponents.
That’s not the kind of company the Longhorns were aiming to join.
A week ago, Texas looked like a legitimate national championship favorite. Now the season has been jolted off course in a span of eight days, with the Oklahoma loss already plenty jarring on its own before the Florida setback made it even harder to shrug off as a one-off.
The questions are much bigger now. Texas will tumble in the AP Poll, and the bigger issue is what these back-to-back losses have done to its College Football Playoff outlook.
There is still a lot of football left, and the 12-team playoff format leaves more room for mistakes than the old system ever did. But Texas has already used up a big chunk of that cushion with consecutive losses.
And the path ahead is anything but forgiving.
The Longhorns host Ole Miss next weekend, then welcome Mississippi State to Austin on Halloween. November brings a rough stretch with road games at Missouri and LSU, before Arkansas comes to town and the regular season ends at Texas A&M.
After what just happened, the rest of the schedule now looks a lot like a gauntlet. Texas still has chances to strengthen its résumé, but it also has plenty of opportunities for this thing to spin further out of control. If the Longhorns are going to climb back into the playoff conversation, they sure look like they’ll need to win out.
In Other News...
Alabama Suddenly Faces Real Pressure After College Footballs Wildest Shakeup
College football spent a chaotic Saturday turning the top of the sport upside down, and Texas was right in the middle of it. Five of the Associated Press Top 25s top seven teams lost in Week 7, an unheard-of shakeup in the regular season that has not happened since the poll began in 1936. Georgia, Notre Dame, Indiana, Alabama and Texas all fell, leaving the rankings in the kind of flux that rarely survives more than one week.
For the Longhorns, the result is less about one bad night than the mess it creates around them. Miamis double-overtime win over Florida State has it in position to grab the No. 1 spot for the first time since 2002, and the rest of the poll now has to sort through a weekend that knocked out so many of the presumed front-runners at once. For Texas, the setback arrives at the worst possible time, with the margin for error suddenly a lot thinner and the path back up the rankings far less predictable. [Read more 🡒]
Arch Manning Suddenly Faces A Texas Question Fans Never Wanted
Texas is in an unfamiliar spot after back-to-back losses, and the discomfort has naturally turned toward Arch Manning, whose play has become a central question as the Longhorns try to steady themselves. For a program that entered the year with high expectations, the conversation has shifted quickly from upside to accountability, with the offense under scrutiny and the quarterback position now part of the broader review.
Steve Sarkisian has made clear that the evaluation goes beyond one player, but it does include the people behind Manning if he decides a change is needed. KJ Lacey, Dia Bell and MJ Morris are among the options being considered, which says plenty about how seriously Texas is weighing every part of the offense while trying to find a way out of the slump. [Read more 🡒]
Arch Manning And Texas Suddenly Face A Season-Saving Debate
Week 7 reshaped the national picture in a hurry, and Texas was among the teams feeling the fallout after its loss to unranked Florida put the Longhorns playoff hopes in jeopardy. Around the country, ranked contenders kept tumbling, from Auburns last-minute upset of Georgia to Tennessees defensive win over Alabama, while Ohio State survived Indiana but came away dealing with a quarterback injury. The AP top 25 changed with all of it, and Texas suddenly found itself with far less room for error than it had just a week ago.
For Arch Manning and the Longhorns, the bigger issue is no longer just the loss itself, but how the rest of the season should be handled from here. With the margin for another slip now razor-thin, Texas faces a debate that can define a season: whether to lean into the urgency of chasing a playoff rescue, or treat the remaining schedule with a longer view in mind. In a year when the title race has already been scrambled by chaos, the Longhorns are left sorting out what kind of push still makes sense. [Read more 🡒]