Steve Sarkisian has spent most of his Texas tenure building around the kind of offense that was supposed to deliver explosive plays on command. This season, though, one of the sharper wrinkles in the Longhorns’ attack has come from a grouping he has rarely leaned on: 10 personnel, with four wide receivers on the field.
Texas has used it only 11 times this season, according to SEC Stat Cat, and that alone tells you how unusual this is for Sarkisian. Across roughly 7,100 plays called over eight seasons, he has gone to 10 personnel fewer than 100 times.
It’s not his comfort zone. It’s not his habit.
But in Saturday’s loss to Oklahoma, it was a weapon.
The Longhorns scored touchdowns on two of the four snaps they ran from that look. On one, junior receiver Ryan Wingo finished a 34-yard touchdown from senior quarterback Arch Manning early in the second quarter.
Texas lined up in a bunch set to the field, with Wingo working down the seam behind a linebacker dropping into coverage. The formation also forced the field safety to hug the hashmarks, while junior receiver Cam Coleman’s deep route pulled the boundary safety’s attention away.
That left the middle of the field wide open, and Manning had a clean read and an easy strike.
Later, in a fourth quarter that needed it, the same personnel grouping helped Texas answer Oklahoma’s go-ahead touchdown after Peyton Bowen’s pick six. That sequence tied the game, and it came in the red zone - an area where Texas has shown at least some modest improvement this season. Sarkisian’s calls there were part of the reason.
This time, the setup created a favorable matchup in a 2x2 formation. Texas had a linebacker split wide in the boundary over Wingo, with Bishop aligned outside.
Wingo’s out route pulled the cornerback and safety with him, and Bishop used his hitch to get the linebacker to commit before bursting away with his acceleration. The safety arrived late and missed, and Texas cashed in on a 15-yard touchdown reception.
According to Inside Texas, the two touchdowns out of 10 personnel came after the package got more work in practice last week, and that carried into preparation for Saturday’s game against Florida in Austin.
The appeal is obvious. Sarkisian has been reluctant to remove any of his top three receivers just to create snaps for Bishop, and 10 personnel lets him keep all four on the field at once.
It also forces defenses into some awkward choices, because linebackers get stretched into matchups they are not built for. Opposing coordinators may have to lean more heavily on dime looks just to keep up.
But Sarkisian knows the tradeoffs are real. Four-wide formations tend to invite pressure because there are fewer bodies left to help in pass protection, and he said defenses will try to take advantage if Texas becomes predictable.
“Really good defensive coordinators like the ones we play against, if they know that that’s all you’re going to do, I promise you, we’re going to get schemed up,” Sarkisan said. “And so you have to be able to to change gears, switch gears, do different things, or we can stand back there, five- and six-man protection, and guys are going to be running free in Arch’s face.”
Texas has already shown one answer to that pressure: putting junior receiver Emmett Mosley in the backfield before motioning him out if the defense doesn’t show a seventh rusher. That gives the Longhorns a way to adjust on the fly without abandoning the look.
There’s danger on the other side, too. If a defense sends seven against four wideouts, it is left in Cover Zero on the back end, with no help over the top against Coleman or anyone else. In that case, the free rusher had better get home quickly.
The run game from 10 personnel hasn’t been much of a threat so far. Texas has run it only twice and gained 2.5 yards per carry, which is another reason the package works better as a changeup than as a foundation. Mosley could help there as well if Texas uses him in the backfield to mimic a 20 personnel look and serve as a lead blocker.
That kind of balance is exactly why 10 personnel remains a wrinkle, not a base identity. As Sarkisian put it, the package has grown and has been effective, but it comes with limits.
“Our 10 personnel is really good to us, and it’s grown as the season’s gone on, and it’s been effective, but you have layers to that - your run game can get limited, your pass protections can get limited. So you have to have other things to offset if people are trying to attack that aspect of your game,” Sarkisian said.
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