ATHENS, Ga. — Everything is bigger in Texas, including the flops.
The Texas Longhorns have gone from preseason No. 1 to all but eliminated from College Football Playoff contention, with three losses in 10 games. They haven’t performed well in a single road game this season, losing three and barely beating Kentucky and Mississippi State, which are a combined 3–11 in the league. They were outplayed and outcoached Saturday night between the hedges, sent home with a 35–10 loss to a Georgia team that might have locked up a playoff bid with this triumph.
Texas now must reckon with a dwindling season that never lived up to expectations.
Quarterback Arch Manning was not an instant star—he’s a limited young player who has miles to go before he can live up to his surname. The Texas offensive line is an average unit at best. The Texas wide receivers don’t make enough plays, and they dropped several passes Saturday night.
And coach Steve Sarkisian is by no means ready to run the Southeastern Conference, having his head handed to him for the third time in two seasons by Kirby Smart. After the worst loss of Sark’s five seasons, it’s clear the Longhorns simply haven’t been anywhere near good enough to justify their 2025 billing or achieve their aspirations.
That’s a hard reality to accept. Which might be why Texas was living in denial late Saturday night, saying that all its goals were still attainable.
“We’ve got a two-week season in front of us,” Sarkisian said. “Let’s put our best foot forward, see what happens.”
A lot would have to happen to get the Horns (7–3 overall, 4–2 in the SEC) in the playoff via the back door. Beating Arkansas and No. 3 Texas A&M is the minimum necessity just to get into the conversation.
Five SEC teams are currently ahead of them in the pecking order: A&M (10–0, 7–0), Georgia (9–1, 7–1), Mississippi (10–1, 6–1), Alabama (8–2, 6–1) and Oklahoma (8–2 and 4–2 but now possessing a better résumé than the Longhorns after winning at Alabama). Texas would likely need more than one of those teams to lose in the final two weeks.
Three Big Ten teams are close to locks: Ohio State (10–0), Indiana (11–0) and Oregon (9–1). Texas Tech (10–1) might get in, even with a Big 12 championship game loss. Notre Dame is 8–2 with two cupcakes remaining. The ACC champion is getting in, and someone will be awarded the Group of 6 automatic bid.
Texas is somewhere in the muddle behind those 12, lumped in with USC (8–2), Michigan (8–2), Vanderbilt (8–2), BYU (9–1) and possibly a second ACC team (Miami looks like the most compelling candidate if it finishes 10–2).
While the opening loss to the Buckeyes is no shame—it remains Ohio State’s closest game to date—the other two Longhorns losses are problematic. One is to a Florida team that is 3–7, and only magical SEC thinking—which says there are no bad losses in this league—can excuse that debacle. The other loss was this game, which turned into a late avalanche.
“The fourth quarter, for lack of better terms, was a disaster,” Sarkisian said.
Georgia has punished a lot of teams in the second half this season. This was particularly savage, a 21–0 beatdown in the last 15 minutes that used an onside kick as an accelerant.
The Bulldogs converted a pair of fourth downs on a touchdown drive that spanned the end of the third quarter and start of the fourth. The second fourth-down conversion came courtesy of an offsides by Texas edge rusher Colin Simmons (the Horns committed 43 more yards in penalties than Georgia). After Gunner Stockton fired a 30-yard seam pass to wide-open London Humphreys for the touchdown, Smart doubled down on the momentum.
He ordered up an onside kick by Peyton Woodring that was perfectly struck, with reserve running back Cash Jones sprinting under it for an easy recovery. Texas was caught completely flat-footed.
“That’s on us as coaches,” Sarkisian said.
Georgia rolled downhill from there, marching 53 yards for another touchdown that put the game out of reach. The Dawgs tacked on one more for good measure later.
“Like [Sarkisian] said, it was a disaster,” Simmons said. “We didn’t finish.”
Much of the focus of this disappointing Texas season has been on Manning, who has been just another quarterback. He came into the Georgia game ninth in the SEC in pass efficiency and seventh in passing yards per game. His completion percentage is 13th. There just hasn’t been anything special about him.
As previously noted, his receivers didn’t help him against the Bulldogs. But he also missed a few throws, including sailing one for an interception that ended a drive into Georgia territory.
Were expectations inflated for the first-year starter because of his family heritage? Certainly. But Texas wasn’t exactly tamping down the preseason hype for Arch. More was expected from within the program, too.
But the single biggest problem this team has had is running the ball. The Horns are lousy at it. They came into Athens last in the league in rushing yards in conference games, averaging just 81.4 per game. Then they ran 17 times for 23 yards, with just a single rush that was longer than six yards.
Somehow, Sarkisian declared afterward, “I actually thought we ran it pretty good.”
This, like the concept of the playoff being within reach, was an example that this Texas team simply hasn’t come to grips with who it is. Winning at Georgia is incredibly hard to do—only Alabama has done it in the last six years—but this is a Longhorns program that sees itself as capable of winning the SEC. Getting thumped by 25 here shows how far away they are from that goal.
When the game was over, Longhorns athletic director Chris Del Conte folded his hands behind his back as he pensively walked off the field. Wearing a burnt-orange velour suit coat, a cowboy hat, jeans and boots, he was the very picture of Texas grandiosity. This had to be a humbling moment.
Del Conte didn’t help steer the university away from the Big 12 and into the SEC last year on a vague notion. The plan was to come in swinging from the start—and last year the Horns made good on that, advancing to the league championship game and the final four of the playoff. But this year, with expectations nudging even higher, has been a regression.
On a day when fellow Big 12 immigrant Oklahoma planted its flag deep in the heart of Dixie by winning at Alabama, the preseason No. 1 team in the nation slid out of the top five in the SEC. That’s a 10-gallon flop.
