Steve Sarkisian and his Texas Longhorns aren’t perfect anymore. After scraping by and surviving in a few close, nail-biting matchups over the past few weeks, UT has finally fallen for the first time this season. The Oklahoma Sooners somehow (in a truly bizarre way) managed to upend the Longhorns 27-24 in a game that will likely haunt the Longhorns when it’s time to talk about the College Football Playoff.
Brent Venables and the Sooners managed to shock Texas in what is Oklahoma’s first Red River Rivalry win since 2023. Venables is now 2-3 in the series and this win has to feel particularly great given that Texas was the No. 1 team in the country heading into this matchup.
But that No. 1 ranking isn’t going to hold for Texas any longer. They’re no longer perfect in one-score games. The Longhorns are sure to drop in the polls. And here are a few folks that deserve some blame.
Arch Manning’s second half performance vs. Oklahoma was abysmal
There really is no way to talk about this game without addressing just how poorly Arch Manning played in the second half against the Sooners. Oklahoma’s defense was able to rattle the Heisman hopeful (and likely totally derailed his Heisman campaign in the process) as they kept him from doing any significant damage.
In the first half, Manning managed to go 9-of-13 passing for 124 yards and two touchdowns. No interceptions. No real problems.
That changed in the second half.
During the second half of the game against Oklahoma, Manning completed just 10-of-18 passes for 136 yards, one touchdown, and two interceptions (one of which was a pick six). And that pick-six happened at an awful time as it gave the Sooners a 24-17 advantage over Texas in the fourth quarter.
Of course, that final interception with just 24 seconds left in the game that gave Oklahoma a chance to kick a game-winning field goal when the Sooners and Longhorns were tied at 24-24 probably didn’t feel all that good either.
Manning had a bad game with a few bright moments. No other way to put it.
UT’s special teams had some pretty big problems against Oklahoma
What a mess for the Texas special teams unit. Just a bunch of issues on this front for this group. And we’re going to talk about the collective here because it’s kind of a collected set of stumbles that needs to be discussed.
Let’s start with a blocked punt that was returned for a touchdown. Generally speaking, it’s not ideal if your punt is blocked. Also generally speaking, it’s so much worse if your punt is blocked and then picked up by the other team in the end zone. And that happened early on in the game, allowing the Sooners to tie it up at 7-7.
On the field goal front, Gianni Spetic only hit half of his field goal attempts. Which, you know, when you only kick two field goal attempts, that’s a little bit of an issue. Sarkisian had Spetic try to hit a 53-yard field goal on fourth-and-2 (it probably would’ve been better to try and go on fourth down in that case) from Oklahoma’s 35-yard line when there was a little under two minutes left in the game and the score was tied 24-24.
And finally, let’s put this at the feet of the head coach, Steve Sarkisian
Just in general, I’m kind of a believer that a head coach should take the final level of responsibility for the way a team performs in a game. And with regards to the way UT’s offense is going, I think the guy behind the assemblage of offensive talent and plays that are called should shoulder a bit of blame as well.
Thus, it’s only fair that we’ve got to talk about Sarkisian here.
In the second half, early on, the Longhorns struggled to find any sort of life on offense. In the third quarter, Texas had 10 plays on offense for a grand total of 41 yards.
We can go ahead and take another angle on this as well. The Longhorns were awful on third downs. 3-of-14 overall and 1-of-6 in the second half against Oklahoma. When it came to three-and-outs, the Longhorns had seven of them.
But it should also be noted that UT’s offense has been a bit underwhelming through the first half of the season. This is a team that entered this matchup averaging 378.5 yards per game. That’s not exactly awe-inspiring for a group that was the No. 1 team in the country.
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