Steve Sarkisian and the Texas Longhorns have a Georgia Bulldogs problem.
Texas has lost six games over the last two seasons, and three of them have been to Georgia by an average margin of 14 points. Granted,
Saturday’s 25-point slow burn blowout buoys that, but last year’s regular-season tilt in Austin was also a two-score margin. In fact, the outlier of the three was the 2024 SEC Championship game, where the Longhorns had a shot to win in regulation but ultimately couldn’t.
Whatever hold Kirby Smart and his staff have on Texas, it brings out the worst tendencies in Sarkisian and his staff, often adding insult to injury.
Texas offense: 274 yards (251 passing, 23 rushing)
The Longhorns offense wasn’t nearly as inept as it had looked in other games this year, but this was clearly a step back after showing signs of coming together in previous games. This marked the fourth time this year that Texas rushed for less than 100 yards — the losses to Florida and the near losses to Kentucky and Vanderbilt marked the other three. In fact, in the last two years, Texas has been held to less than 100 rushing yards eight times, three of which came against Georgia. It happened just three times in the three seasons prior, against Alabama, TCU, and Washington in the 2022 season.
A glaring development occurred after the 2021 season that impacted the Longhorns’ rushing consistency: Bijan Robinson and Roschon Johnson departed for the NFL.
It wasn’t just a lack of success on the ground, but a lack of commitment to running the ball that seemingly cost Texas in this game. Texas running backs had just 10 combined carries in the game for 40 yards, just three of which came in the second half of the game. The 17 rushing attempts by Texas were the fewest in the Sarkisian era, narrowly edging the 18 against Washington in the 2022 College Football Playoff.
Arch Manning: 27-43, 251 yards, TD, INT
After back-to-back games with more than 300 passing yards and three touchdowns, Texas quarterback Arch Manning came back to earth a bit. He missed a few passes, an open DeAndrew Moore that would have been a chunk play and an interception thrown over Moore’s head – on a questionable no-call holding.
That being said, his teammates did him few favors in the contest, and things spiraled out of control.
Texas was moving the ball well on the opening drive of the game, moving to the Georgia 18-yard-line, thanks in part to Manning’s four consecutive completions for 31 yards. After cracking into the red zone, left guard Cole Hutson was flagged for a false start that put Texas behind the chains, then two plays later, Ryan Wingo let a ball get past his hands, bouncing off of his chest and to the ground for the first of four drops of the game.
Three of Texas’s four credited drops came on third-down attempts, all of which came on good throws by Manning.
Perhaps the most frustrating sequence came in the second quarter with the offense working to respond to Georgia’s second touchdown of the first half, trailing 14-3.
After an iffy holding call put Texas behind the chains, Manning delivered a strike to Emmett Mosley V for 40 yards, building momentum for the Horns. On the next play, Manning tossed a rainbow to Wingo, who adjusted to the ball in the air, but couldn’t manage to bring in an acrobatic catch that hit his hands twice and would have put Texas at the 8-yard line.
The next two passes were both dropped, one by tight end Jordan Washington and one by Moore. Both plays would have likely converted first downs and kept the drive alive. Instead, Texas punted and saw one of its few promising first-half drives squandered.
Texas defense: 357 yards (229 passing, 128 rushing)
A usually stout Texas defense struggled early to get stops thanks to a bad scheme from defensive coordinator Pete Kwiatkowski. Still, once the play caller adjusted his gameplan, the defense looked like the one we expected, until a disastrous fourth quarter.
Going into the fourth quarter, Georgia had 238 yards and was averaging 5.3 yards per play. A gassed defensive unit, thanks in large part to the stolen possession from an onside kick, spent nearly 12 minutes on the field in the fourth quarter and surrendered 119 total yards, 6.3 yards per play, and 21 points that turned a close game into a blowout.
Bulldogs quarterback Gunner Stockton didn’t have to pass many times in that run, but he completed all four attempts in the final 15 minutes, two of which went for scores. Stockton added the final insult to the embarrassing close to the game, scrambling four yards for a touchdown to give the Texas defense a final black eye.
Georgia rushed for 128 yards in the contest, just the third time this year Texas has allowed more than 100 yards on the ground. Likely a product of a unit that spent 11 of 15 minutes on the field, they allowed 67 of them in the fourth quarter – 52 percent of the total Bulldogs output on the day.
