Texas survived the latest AP Top 25 Poll with its No. 1 ranking intact, but the Longhorns didn’t exactly make it easy on the voters.
After beating No. 14 Tennessee in Week 4, Texas stayed on top of the new poll despite another uneven showing on offense.
The defense carried the day again, and without that unit, the Longhorns probably aren’t walking out of Knoxville still sitting at No. 1.
The top of the poll stayed crowded behind Texas. Georgia checked in at No.
2, Notre Dame at No. 3, Miami at No. 4 and Ohio State at No.
- Indiana came in at No. 6, followed by Alabama, Florida, Ole Miss and BYU to round out the top 10.
LSU landed at No. 11, with Texas Tech, Utah, Iowa and Oregon filling out the next stretch. Mississippi State, Tennessee, USC, Oklahoma State, Houston, SMU, Boise State, UCLA and Kentucky followed.
For Texas, the story from Week 4 was pretty simple: the defense was outstanding, and the offense was stuck in neutral. Arch Manning never found the end zone through the air, and the Longhorns generated very little consistent momentum.
The defense, though, was relentless. Texas forced two turnovers on downs, recorded 10 sacks and 12 tackles for loss, and held Tennessee to just one touchdown.
That wasn’t a one-off, either. Since halftime of the Week 2 game against Ohio State, Texas had gone 28 drives without allowing a touchdown before Tennessee finally broke through in the fourth quarter.
Zooming out even further makes the defensive run look even stronger. Over the last 29 drives, Texas has allowed only 19 points, which comes out to 0.65 points per drive. In that stretch, the Longhorns have given up just one touchdown and only 3.28 yards per play.
That kind of performance is what kept Texas unbeaten and still sitting at No. 1, even with the offense searching for answers.
Tennessee’s loss pushed the Volunteers from No. 14 to No. 17 in the new poll. The Vols hung around until the very end, but they couldn’t finish the job against a Texas team that leaned hard on its defense to survive.
The gap between Texas and the teams chasing it is also starting to show. Georgia and Notre Dame have looked far cleaner through four games, with Georgia outscoring its first four opponents 219-53 and Notre Dame winning its first four by a 169-33 margin. Texas, by comparison, has built only an 80-point margin over the first month, and that number has been dragged down by repeated offensive stalls.
That leaves Steve Sarkisian with a clear problem to solve. In the SEC, leaning on the defense this heavily is a dangerous game for anyone, no matter how dominant the other side of the ball might be.
Texas is off this week, and after what it just went through, the bye looks well timed. Then comes the Red River Rivalry, where the Longhorns will run into another defense that can wreck a game: Oklahoma.
In Other News...
Florida Just Reached A Place Gators Fans Have Missed For Years
The AP Top 25 after Week 4 kept Texas right where it has been, still No. 1 with 62 first-place votes, as Georgia stayed at No. 2 and Notre Dame held No. 3. But one of the more notable shifts came a little farther down the list, where Florida climbed into the top 10 at No. 8, a spot the Gators had not occupied in five years.
For Texas, the ranking serves as another reminder that the margin for staying atop the poll is thin, with the usual heavy hitters still in close pursuit. Floridas return to that tier adds a bit more weight to the Longhorns path ahead, because every week now seems to bring another contender moving back into view. [Read more 🡒]
Texas Learned Something Important About Will Muschamps Defense In Knoxville
Texas left Knoxville with a 20-17 win built on defense, and it was the kind of performance that tells a coach a lot about his team early in the season. Tennessee never found a steady rhythm against the Longhorns, and the game turned into a field-position grind as Texas kept applying pressure and making the Vols work for every inch.
Will Muschamps unit was especially disruptive up front, and the pass rush never let Tennessee settle in. The Longhorns kept collapsing the pocket in waves, with multiple players getting involved and one standout turning in a night that will be remembered around Austin for a while, even if the full scale of it took until after the final whistle to really sink in. [Read more 🡒]
Texas Survived Tennessee Despite A Problem That Could Haunt Them
Texas came out of Knoxville with a win, but not much comfort. The Longhorns edged Tennessee 20-17 in a game that exposed the kind of offensive issues that can turn into a real problem later in the season, with Texas sputtering through stretches and getting tagged for 11 penalties and 115 yards. Even so, the defense kept the night from slipping away, harassing Tennessees freshman quarterback from start to finish and giving Texas a chance to survive a messy road test.
The pass rush was the difference, and it was relentless enough to tilt the entire game. Texas piled up 10 sacks, with Colin Simmons tying a school record by getting to the quarterback five times, a performance that masked plenty of offensive frustration elsewhere on the field. For a team still unbeaten, the bigger concern may be how much it had to lean on its defense to escape a game that stayed tense until the very end. [Read more 🡒]