Texas doesn’t need a reminder of how thin the margin is against Ohio State. The Longhorns have lived it the last two seasons, and Steve Sarkisian says the same issue keeps staring back at him on the film: Texas has to cash in once it gets inside the 20.
That’s the central lesson Sarkisian carried into Monday’s news conference as No. 5 Texas prepares to face No.
1 Ohio State on Saturday at Royal-Memorial Stadium at 6:30 p.m. The Buckeyes have won both recent meetings, and in Sarkisian’s view, the decisive stretch has been the red zone.
“That was probably the difference in the ball games, was our inability to score inside the 10,” Sarkisian said Monday during his news conference. “Hopefully this time around, we get more opportunities like that, and we can capitalize on them.”
The numbers from those games tell the story plainly. In the College Football Playoff semifinal two years ago, Texas scored on one of its two trips inside the 10 in Ohio State’s 28-14 win, while the Buckeyes turned both of their red-zone chances into touchdowns. Last season in Columbus, Texas came away empty on both of its trips inside Ohio State’s 20 in a 14-7 loss, and the Buckeyes scored on their lone red-zone possession.
By that count, Texas has gone 1-4 in red-zone scoring against Ohio State over the last two seasons, while the Buckeyes are 3-3. Sarkisian knows that kind of efficiency can decide a game where points figure to be scarce.
“I think when it comes to those scenarios, personnel helps, schemes help, the right play call at the right time helps, the mentality helps,” he said. “It all adds up, because they've got good scheme, they've got good players, they've got good play callers. So, it's that marriage of those things coming together (and) ultimately, we need to be better in those scenarios.”
Texas spent the offseason trying to make that better more realistic. Sarkisian pointed to the additions the Longhorns made through the transfer portal, including right tackle Melvin Siani and left guards Dylan Sikorski and Laurence Seymore III up front, along with receiver Cam Coleman and running backs Hollywood Smothers and Raleek Brown at the skill positions.
The bigger challenge now is turning those pieces into a more balanced attack against an Ohio State defense that has already given Texas trouble. Last year, the Longhorns ran for 166 yards on 37 carries but threw for just 170 yards on 30 attempts, averaging 5.7 yards per pass. In 2024, the script flipped: Texas passed for 283 yards but managed only 58 rushing yards on 29 carries.
“I’ve got to find a way to find balance in this game,” said Sarkisian, who has called the offense since becoming head coach in 2021. “When you're playing really good teams, which Ohio State is a very good football team, you have to try to find a way to have balance in the game because the coaches are too good, the players are too good, the players are too smart.
“When you become one-dimensional, you're that much easier to stop. And so, finding balance in a game like this is important," he continued.
"We hit a few of those passes (last year), I probably feel a little better about me as a play-caller in those games. You don't hit them, I don't feel quite as good.
That's kind of the life of a play-caller. That's the way it goes.”
For Sarkisian, it all comes back to finishing drives.
“I don't think it was about physicality,” he said. “I think it was about our inability to execute (and) get points on the board when we had chances.”
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There is more confidence around the offense now, with Cam Coleman added at receiver and Arch Manning showing more pocket presence and decisiveness. Even so, the challenge remains the same for Texas in a game of this size: turn opportunities near the goal line into points, because against Ohio State the margin for error figures to be razor thin again. [Read more 🡒]