Texas escaped Tennessee with a 20-17 win on Saturday, but the penalty mess surrounding the No. 1 Longhorns kept getting worse.
What looked like a manageable early-season issue has snowballed fast. Texas had only six penalties for 47 yards across its first two games. In the last two, the Longhorns have been flagged 19 times for 203 yards, including an ugly 11-penalty, 115-yard night against Tennessee.
“We’ve got to find ways to clean up the penalties,” Texas head coach Steve Sarkisian said on Monday. “Now it’s 19 penalties in the last two weeks and we can control a lot of them.
Some of them we can’t. We can control a lot of them.
So again, we’ve got to get back to the emphasis as a coaching staff.”
That kind of number tells the story on its own, but the way Texas accumulated those flags made it even more frustrating. The Longhorns kept creating self-inflicted damage on all three phases of the game, and the mistakes came in every possible form: before the snap, during plays and after the whistle.
Tennessee’s lone successful offensive drive in the first 56 minutes ended with a field goal, but even that possession was fueled by Texas mistakes. Defensive end Lance Jackson was hit with roughing the passer on the first play, moving the Volunteers from their own 25 to the Texas 49.
Two snaps later, cornerback Bo Mascoe was called for pass interference, adding 15 more yards. The drive ended with three points, but 30 of the 60 yards came from Texas penalties.
Mascoe was flagged twice for pass interference on the day, giving the Texas secondary four such penalties this season. Kade Phillips has been called for pass interference twice as well.
“I thought one I could understand PI, the other one I thought he played it pretty well,” Sarkisian said.
Quarterback Arch Manning also had a rough time with the officials. He was called twice for throwing a forward pass beyond the line of scrimmage, and it marked the third time in the last two games that he has been flagged for that same mistake. Both calls were costly because they came with a loss of down.
“The first one, I think he thought he was getting it off before the line to gain,” Sarkisian said. “I actually think on the second one we were in, I believe a 3rd and 12, and I think he was operating off the 1st and 10 marker, not the stripe that was actually where we were. So, I guess it can happen that way.”
The order was different, but the damage was the same. On one of those plays, Raleek Brown was open early and would have had an easy first down on 3rd and 12.
Instead, Texas had to punt, and an illegal formation penalty on the punt gave Tennessee the ball at its own 42. On the other illegal forward pass, Manning was on 2nd and 15 and had no room to scramble, leaving him with little choice but to get rid of the ball earlier.
Manning was also hit with a delay of game in the third quarter. That turned a 3rd and 2 into a 3rd and 7 and helped stall a chance for Texas in a situation that could have become four-down territory.
Special teams got in on the act again, too. For the second straight week, that unit was penalized multiple times, including the illegal formation.
Ryan Niblett also had a return wiped out by a block in the back, turning what had been a 14-yard return into just four yards. Texas then went three-and-out after Manning had to recover a bad snap that cost the offense 12 yards on first down.
Another punt return was also brought back, denying Texas a chance to start a drive in Tennessee territory. That possession ended in another three-and-out.
The final flag came with 26 seconds left, when Simmons sacked the quarterback on 3rd and 19, only for a face mask penalty on defensive end Zina Umeozulu to turn the stop into a first down. It was the kind of penalty that can swing a game, even if it didn’t change the final result.
Sarkisian’s team ended the day with flags spread across offense, defense and special teams. There were mental errors, repeat offenders and mistakes that simply didn’t need to happen.
Texas got away with it this time. But the trend is impossible to ignore. The Longhorns’ penalty issues are getting more severe, not less, and the last two weeks are not something a team chasing an unbeaten season can keep surviving.
Texas now ranks 90th nationally in penalty yards per game at 62.5. The Longhorns sit much higher in penalties per game, but the yardage damage is what has really piled up.
Texas has a bye this week before facing Oklahoma in Dallas on October 10 at 2:30 p.m. Central.
In Other News...
Ohio State Faces A Playoff Squeeze As SEC Momentum Builds
The College Football Playoff picture is already starting to tilt toward the SEC, and Texas is right in the middle of the conversation as one of the teams helping drive that momentum. With the current top tier also including Ohio State, Miami, Georgia, Notre Dame and Indiana, the race is shaping up as much about conference depth as it is about individual rsums, and the Longhorns figure to be measured against that broader backdrop as the season moves on.
What makes the discussion even more interesting is the possibility that the SEC could put five or more teams into the playoff field, which would match or even top last years record. A six-team SEC showing still looks unlikely, but it is no longer off the table thanks to the leagues overall strength and the new strength-of-conference metric, a development that could make every Texas result carry even more weight in the weeks ahead. [Read more 🡒]
Texas Faces A Bigger Problem Than Its Tennessee Win Showed
Texas win over Tennessee brought plenty of on-field praise, but it also left the program dealing with a postgame issue the scoreboard could not hide. Athletic director Chris Del Conte publicly blasted inappropriate celebrations by Colin Simmons and Raleek Brown, calling the actions embarrassing and unacceptable while apologizing to the Longhorn community.
The backdrop only made the reaction sharper because both players had major moments in the game, with Simmons setting a Texas single-game sack record and Brown scoring twice. Even so, Del Conte made clear the program is drawing a line on conduct, and the real question now is how Texas handles the standard it wants attached to big wins like this one. [Read more 🡒]
Texas Has Reached A Standard That Changes Everything Under Sarkisian
Steve Sarkisian has pushed Texas into a different lane, one where a big win is no longer a surprise and a ranked opponent no longer feels like a ceiling. Since 2023, the Longhorns have piled up 16 Top-25 victories, a stretch that includes statement road work and wins over the kind of brands that used to define the gap Texas was trying to close, like Alabama and Ohio State.
Now the standard is higher, and so are the stakes. Texas is staring at a schedule loaded with ranked opponents while chasing a national championship trip that still remains just out of reach, and the one hurdle that has mattered most in this rise is still standing in the way: Georgia. For Sarkisian, the challenge is no longer proving Texas belongs in the conversation, but turning that standing into the kind of finish this program has been building toward. [Read more 🡒]