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(Joe Cook) Instant Reaction: And it's goodbye to A&M

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Texas 27. Texas A&M 17. 78-37-5. Time to update that Twitter bio, Drew Kelson.

***After a first half on offense that netted an extremely disappointing 112 yards and just three points, Texas delivered quite possibly its strongest quarter of football of the entire season against one of the toughest teams on its schedule. The third quarter was everything Steve Sarkisian wants from a 15 minute period of football. The Longhorns scored 10 points after halftime and cashed in on a strong end to the quarter with one more touchdown play on the opposite side of the break. Sarkisian’s offense was balanced with 83 rushing yards, 106 passing yards, and only one penalty. The final drive of the third was a thing of beauty, with Texas involving multiple tight ends in concert with another tenacious Quintrevion Wisner effort, one that saw a Texas running back eclipse 100 yards for the first time all year. Jack Endries had his biggest play since week one with a 54 yard catch and run to the two. Then, Nick Townsend took a cheeky handoff around the left edge and into the end zone to give Texas a 20-10 lead in the first play of the fourth quarter.

***Not to be outdone, the Texas defense was magnificent even after A&M got the ball first after halftime in the third quarter. The Aggies’ offense picked up 35 total yards and only one first down, running 12 plays. Texas’ crowd did its part, helping the A&M offense into a handful of procedure penalties and making a few short-yardage situations no-go opportunities for A&M. The fourth quarter was just as dominant and forced A&M into a game of catchup it had no chance to win.

***The three and out to start the second half featured some of the good that Sarkisian wants to see from his offense and hinted at what might be on its way. Wisner notched a 48-yard run and flipped the field, getting Texas into position to score. However, in what might be indicative of the weight on his shoulders this season, Manning tried to do too much. Instead of taking a defender one-on-one with a scramble, he tried to force a throw into the end zone to Emmett Mosley. Then when in the grasp of a defender, he tried to throw a ball away and ended up flagged for grounding. Texas still was able to net three points, but against a Texas A&M defense that has struggled mightily defending its own red zone, another three-point journey seemed like a wasted attempt. Luckily, the very next drive delivered a payoff that the one prior did not.

***Manning overcame a sluggish start to put on a show in a national spotlight. He was 14-for-29 for 179 yards and one passing touchdown and added 53 yards and the backbreaking 35-yard touchdown on the ground.

***The win gives the Texas Longhorns a fighting chance to hear their names called on Selection Sunday after conference championships. In the Longhorns’ favor is a 3-2 record against teams ranked No. 3, No. 6, No. 9, No. 5, and No. 3 at the time of the games including wins over No. 6 Oklahoma, No. 9 Vanderbilt, and No. 3 Texas A&M. The loss to currently 3-8 Florida is the obvious black mark on that resume, but is there another team in the country that has played the schedule Texas had and made it through? Texas is 9-3 and 6-2 in the SEC. In the preseason, there was discussion north of the Red River wondering if a 9-3 record for Oklahoma would be enough to get them into the College Football Playoff. The real questions should have been about the team south of the Red River. You know, the team with the Golden Hat.

***The Longhorns will have to wait a long nine days before learning if they made the 12 team field for a second season in a row. The wait will be excruciating, especially as they watch a number of teams they’d like to see fall behind them play tomorrow. It is far, far better for Texas to have that wait than to be sitting around curious where it will play its late-December bowl.

***On a different macro level, Sarkisian can claim a very good position against all three of the teams Texas has as permanent SEC rivals. The Longhorns are now 2-0 versus Texas A&M as members of the SEC. Sarkisian is also 3-2 against Oklahoma and 2-1 against Arkansas. There’s room to be upset about some results against other SEC teams, but Sarkisian undoubtedly has the upper hand against Texas’ biggest rivals on the field and on the trail.

***Much credit is due to the Texas defense. Without Anthony Hill for the whole game, Ty’Anthony Smith for the first half, and Kade Phillips for most of the second half, the Longhorn defense held the Aggies to their second-lowest point total of the season. The stats may reflect decent games from Marcel Reed, Rueben Owens, EJ Smith, and a few others, the most important stat was the point total on the scoreboard. The Aggies were 3-for-5 with two touchdowns in the red zone but also had four three and outs and two turnovers on their 13 drives. Immense credit is owed to…

    Ethan Burke, who did the thing again against Texas A&M with his blocked field goal, a pass break up, and 0.5 TFL.
    Michael Taafe, who, same with his interception.
    Liona Lefau, who logged 11 tackles.
    Jelani McDonald, who flew around the field all game.
    Colin Simmons, who impacted the game even with a lot of attention on him.
    Kobe Black, who stepped in for Phillips and delivered the game-sealing pick.
    Texas’ plethora of defensive tackles.

***Oh by the way, Wisner is a bone fide rivalry game legend. 19 carries. 155 yards. He gave the Texas offense the opportunities it needed to open things up not just for Manning and the pass-catchers, but also to keep the Texas defense fresh and able to get after Reed. Undoubtedly a player who made the very most of his chances against A&M and also OU. Take a bow, five.

***Housekeeping: OL Neto Umeozulu, TE Jack Endries, and DL Hero Kanu are going through senior day festivities. Umeozulu and Endries are fourth year juniors. Kanu is listed as a senior by Texas but should have a year of eligibility remaining considering he redshirted at Ohio State in 2022.

Evan Vieth: A third quarter takeover propels Texas to a Lone Star legacy win

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Heading into halftime, the pulse in Austin was timid, at best. It had been yet another sluggish first half for the Texas Longhorns. Arch Manning was just 8/21. The Longhorns had just three points and trailed at the half, with the Texas A&M Aggies retaining possession as the second half opened. It seemed like a TD drive from A&M would be enough momentum to end the Longhorns’ season for good. But the team that emerged from the home locker room was rekindled. Something new showed up on the field, as Texas stormed through the third quarter to eventually take a 27-17 win in the Lone Star Showdown over bitter rivals Texas A&M.

It all started with the defense getting a stop on the first drive. A three-and-out put the offense back on the field. Immediately, Quintrevion Wisner bursted for a 48-yard run, he would end up being the catalyst of the Longhorn comeback. The offense would stall, but a field goal was converted, and Texas was within four. Three plays later, the Aggies were off the field again. Texas had just one three-and-out defensive possession in the first half. It had two within two drives in the second.

The offense would return to the field and mount an impressive drive. Wisner would rush for 22 yards on the first two plays, getting him over 100 yards on the season for the first time all year. Two plays later, he’d add 17 yards, and Texas was within the A&M 30. Manning then made the play of the game. Scrambling out of pressure, he opted to throw a risky pass on the run right at the line of scrimmage. It was risky; he had done that the drive prior and potentially lost them six points in the red zone. This time, though, a near overthrow met the hands of Ryan Wingo, who made a tremendous play to haul it in for the touchdown. Texas led.

Texas A&M wasn’t out of it yet, though. The run game came back to life, and they marched 25 yards to midfield on five plays. But on 3rd and 1, the Longhorns defense would make a stop that would’ve made the 2024 team proud. On 4th and 1, one play later, the left side of Texas A&M’s offensive line would move early. Texas’ defense was off the field. With the offense back on the field, Texas would gain 30 yards before a giant play opened the game up. Manning sat in the pocket for what felt like forever thanks to a good OL effort, finding Jack Endries on the left hash. Endries would use a stiff arm to rumble down the sideline all the way to the A&M 2.

The 3rd quarter clock would burn out, but the spark the offense had given would not. As the clock hit double zeros, Manning whooped and hollared 30 yards down the field to greet his team. DKR was the loudest it had been all year. Everyone in Austin was witnessing a monumental change of pace. Out of the break, Texas lined up in an odd formation and called an odd play call. Freshman TE Nick Townsend would receive a handoff straight from Manning. The playcall fooled everyone, and he waltzed into the endzone. Texas would take a 20-10 lead, and despite a late effort from A&M, the Longhorns kept the Lone Star Showdown Trophy in Austin.

In a season that many Longhorn fans would like to forget, Texas took down all three of its rivals: Oklahoma, Arkansas and Texas A&M. A third quarter to remember, and a victory to savor for the next 365 days. Texas takes down little brother in Austin for the first time in 17 years. 

 

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Dan Wolken: After Texas' big win over Texas A&M, get ready for a relentless media blitz to get Longhorns in the College Football Playoff

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AUSTIN — Every few minutes in this thunderdome of a college football stadium at the University of Texas, they’re making cannons go boom, releasing orange smoke from sparklers that spray flames into the sky or turning the place dark so light beams from 100,000 phones can cast a disorienting neon cacophony even the Sixth Street saloons and honky-tonks can’t match. And that’s nothing compared to the sensory overload Texas, the Southeastern Conference and their business partner ESPN are about to flood the airwaves with over the next week in their desperate attempt to get the three-loss Longhorns into the College Football Playoff.
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You know it’s coming. After Texas’ 27-17 victory over No. 3 Texas A&M here Friday night, knocking the rival Aggies from the ranks of the unbeaten, in-state bragging rights won’t be enough for Texas. The push to get the Longhorns and Arch Manning into this playoff will be organized and relentless. And the opening salvo came moments after their on-field celebration at Darrell K. Royal Texas Memorial Stadium when Texas head coach Steve Sarkisian turned from football coach to politician.

“I think we’re absolutely a playoff team,” Sarkisian said. “We beat an undefeated No. 3 team in the country that a lot of pundits thought was the best team in the country, and we just beat them by two scores. That’s a pretty dominant win for our team, and I don’t know how many other teams can say they have wins like that. We’ve had some great wins. I get it. We didn’t beat Ohio State, we didn’t beat Georgia. But you look at other teams in front of us and look at their schedules, it’s comical. What would their record be if they played those teams?”

This is a test for the selection committee. Are they supposed to care about a body of work which says that Texas’ three losses — including a true toe-stubber to 3-8 Florida in early October — should probably be disqualifying? Or is their job to take Texas’ best moments, including three very good wins over the Aggies, Oklahoma and Vanderbilt, and project them as a late bloomer whose overwhelmingly talented roster could do damage in the CFP? And from Texas’ standpoint, the crux of the argument comes down to this: What would this look like if they hadn’t taken on the challenge of playing current No. 1 Ohio State in the season opener and losing 14-7? What if, instead of going on the road to one of the toughest places to play in all of college football with a first-year starting quarterback and a new offensive line, they had scheduled Kent State and eased into the season?

“If we’re a 10-2 team right now, this isn’t a discussion,” Sarkisian said. “But we were willing to go up there and play that game.” It’s a compelling point because it’s largely true, and you’ll undoubtedly hear SEC commissioner Greg Sankey make it every time a microphone comes into his vicinity over the next week. It’s undeniable that a 10-2 Texas with their three high-quality wins would probably get a playoff spot. But Texas isn’t 10-2. And those what-ifs don’t account for the cruel, sometimes unfair reality of college football: In a sport with only 12 data points, you are defined by neither your best nor worst moment. Instead, it’s the totality of a complicated picture, and the 12-team playoff system is supposed to account for all of it.

If Texas misses out on the CFP, can they honestly say that playing Ohio State cost them a bid? Or by losing that game, did they merely fail to earn the extra margin for error that would have allowed them to lose to a team like Florida without much punishment? “We went on the road to Ohio State and lost in a one-score game where we outgained them by 200 yards and no one else has been close against them,” Sarkisian said. “But I think more importantly it’s the message we want to send to the head coaches and athletic directors around the country. When you play five top-10 ranked teams and go 3-2 and schedule Ohio State out of conference, I don’t think we want to punish us to do that because what will we do? We’ll get out of those games like a lot of teams have done. They have nice, pretty records but they’re not willing to play those games.”

It’s the exact same argument Alabama made, unsuccessfully, when it was left out of the playoff a year ago at 9-3, kickstarting an entire offseason of discourse around CFP expansion and how the committee uses strength of schedule. And Sarkisian will come armed in every media appearance with all the stats about how difficult a road it was for Texas this year. “We’re gonna have a good shot to get in there because of Coach Sark,” receiver Ryan Wingo said. “He’s got a way with words.” But are his words enough to convince selection committee members that Texas, particularly with Manning’s development over the course of the season, is a different team than it was in August? Or, more to the point, can he convince them Texas’ trajectory should matter more than what it put on paper?

It's an attractive proposition, particularly for a television network that would love the ratings juice Manning brings. And it just might be enough to make the Longhorns the first three-loss playoff team in history. “I feel like we’ve come a long way,” Manning said. “We’ve played a lot of good teams. I hope this thing works out because we’re trending in the right direction. We’re a good team. We’re only getting better. And if you let us in, we can beat anyone.”

Brian Davis: Texas A&M takes little comfort in 11-1 record after loss to UT. 'Tired of losing to same team.'

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AUSTIN — Not that Texas A&M fans want to hear it right now after what happened Friday at Darrell K Royal-Texas Memorial Stadium, but let’s start with the good news. No. 3 Texas A&M is probably going to host a College Football Playoff game at Kyle Field in December. Mike Elko’s Aggies still have a leg up in the national championship hunt. Last year, every team that hosted a first-round game went 4-0. It’ll be electric, no question. To get that home game required a huge, painful tradeoff. A&M lost to its biggest rival No. 16 Texas for the second straight year, 27-17, watched its undefeated record go by the wayside and missed out on playing for the SEC championship in what was shaping up as the greatest season in school history.

“We want to go to the SEC championship. We’re tired of losing to the same team back-to-back years, tired of not winning that trophy,” linebacker Taurean York said. It might take Elko a few days to recover. As Elko spoke to reporters, Texas fans exiting the stadium made tons of noise and were banging on the press conference door. “I think we’re just thinking about not getting the job done tonight,” Elko said. “Coming out of this weekend, maybe we’ll regroup and figure out moving forward what the positives are of 11-1. “Right now, it just hurts that we lost to our rival.”

There’s plenty of time for soul-searching in College Station long before the final CFP rankings are unveiled Dec. 7. Texas A&M (11-1, 7-1 SEC) now just has to sit around and wait. “We’re going to drive out to College Station for the next two hours, and it’s probably going to be really silent,” York said. “Hurts a lot, but you’ve got to regroup and get ready for the playoffs.” Start with the difference in physicality between the first and second halves. Elko’s Aggies were the ones smashing through Longhorns and dashing all over the field in the first half. A&M running back Rueben Owens II laid out Texas’ Brad Spence and sprung KC Concepcion loose for an 8-yard touchdown run. Then it was A&M defensive tackle Tyler Onyedim sacking UT’s Arch Manning and knocking the Horns out of field goal range just before halftime.

The Longhorns had just 61 rushing yards in the first half and went a pedestrian 3-for-9 on third down. The Aggies held a 10-3 lead, but it felt bigger than a one-score game. The tide started turning when A&M quarterback Marcel Reed misfired on a deep ball to Concepcion on third-and-2 early in the third quarter. The incompletion forced a punt, and the Horns went the other way and took the lead. Manning’s lofty 29-yard throw to Ryan Wingo almost sailed out the back of the north end zone. Only it didn’t, and Texas had a 13-10 lead and the momentum.

Then, A&M had a fourth-and-1 setup at midfield. The noise level was at ear-splitting highs thanks to a crowd of 103,632, and A&M’s Reuben Fatheree moved before the snap. It was one of three A&M false start penalties. “Obviously, it’s a good environment,” Reed said. “There’s going to be noise, but I don’t think it’s anything that we haven’t heard before.” Manning, who started awful, found his groove. A 19-yard completion to Parker Livingstone was big. Then, Manning hit Jack Endries for a completion, and Endries stiff-armed Marcus Ratcliffe for a 54-yard gain to finish off the third quarter. The Horns scored on the next play and the place was roaring. “We had too many busts. We weren’t doing our job,” York said. “This same story I told y’all last year happened again. We didn’t do our job in the second half, therefore they won the game.”

Said Elko: “You have to be in position to deliver blows, and so it’s hard to do that if you’re not in the positions you need to be in to do those things. And so we just weren’t where we needed to be.” On A&M’s next possession, Elko went for it again on fourth-and-1 from his own 38-yard line. Reed said the Aggies substituted personnel, and by rule, the defense is allowed to sub out. Reed said the official delayed the snap, and the play clock got away from him. “That’s really on me a little bit, and I got to try to beat the clock there and know what we’re working with,” Reed said. The Aggies got back in it with EJ Smith’s 13-yard touchdown run. But Manning answered with an aggressive run up the middle, a 35-yard sprint to the end zone that was his longest scoring play of the year.

At that point, the Aggies went into hurry-up mode and started pressing. Reed threw an interception to UT’s Michael Taaffe at the lip of the goal line. The Aggies forced a punt, but Reed threw another pick on the next offensive snap to Kobe Black. Reed wasn’t going to blame an ankle injury that took him out of action for one offensive play. “I just kind of got spooked. I’m good,” he said. Reed wasn’t going to blame anything. The A&M and Texas quarterbacks had a nice postgame exchange on the field in a moment of sportsmanship. Who knows? Maybe they meet again in the CFP, if the Horns can jump high enough in the updated rankings.

“I mean, there’s a lot right now to be proud of,” Reed said. “We’ve put up an 11-win regular season for the first time this century, I’m pretty sure. And you know, there’s still a lot to work for.” Reed is excited for a playoff game at Kyle Field “in front of our fans.” “We’re going to have to win out now,” Reed said. “I think this team is really capable of it, and I think we believe that we can make it to the national championship. And so we’re just going to put our heads down and grind.”

 

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(Graham Harmon) Instant reaction: Texas A&M's Atlanta dream dies in Austin disaster

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For the second straight year, Texas A&M was playing in the Lone Star Showdown for a chance to get to the SEC Championship in Atlanta— and for the second straight year, they failed to do so. Admittedly, this game was far different than last year's, but the fact remains that they were still unable to get it done when they needed to. There were a lot of factors on paper that favored the Aggies in this one— Texas's lack of rush offense up until this point in the year, the Aggies' excellent pass rush, A&M's heretofore great passing offense— and you saw some of those come through, but others failed to.

The pressure that the Aggies got up front on Arch in the late part of the first half seemed to bode well, especially given how much of a second-half team this has been, but the off-schedule plays were the kryptonite here. Things began to fade quickly in that second half, and a game that the Aggies should have won handily turned into a costly loss in a really uncharacteristic way.

Texas A&M comes apart in second half in Austin to fall just short of undefeated regular season

The biggest issue, though, was the wasted red zone possessions. Texas A&M had three red zone possessions in this game that ended up netting them only three points. Convert touchdowns in those possessions, and this is a blowout the other way— but for once, the Aggies' issues in wasted yardage came back to bite them. This is something that the Aggies had flirted with all year, but this is the first time it really cost them. The Ags had a penchant for driving down the field and failing to get the score in certain games (see Auburn and Mississippi State), but they were always able to evade a scrape.

You can only do that so many times in big road environments and win, though. At some point, you need to play a full, four-quarter game. We still actually haven't even seen that yet out of this team, which is crazy to say, but it's the case. This is one that Aggie fans will want to flush quickly, of course. A&M is in the playoff at this point, so it's just a question of how far the committee will have them tumble. There could be some bad news on that front, as it's not out of the question that they fall all the way to 8th or lower given the committee's poor way of calculating SOS.

We'll await selection Sunday to see just where the Aggies end up— hosting a first-round playoff game in Kyle Field isn't the worst fate by a long shot, but you desperately wish you had gotten this one across the finish line.

Cedric Golden: Did Texas do enough to get to the College Football Playoff?

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A season wrought with frustration wasn’t just about the Texas football players. The fans felt it too. Friday night’s 27-17 win over No. 3 Texas A&M provided Longhorn Nation with some release. And hope. The signs in the Royal-Memorial Stadium stands reflected the feelings of a fan base that came in believing the home team would find a way to squeeze into the College Football Playoff despite coming in at No. 16 in the latest rankings. “This is absolutely a playoff team,” said Texas coach Steve Sarkisian, who laid out his team's case in spectacular detail, from the 14-7 season-opening loss at Ohio State to the Horns becoming the first team since the 2019 national champion LSU Tigers to beat three top-10 teams in the regular season. 

The Horns finished up at 9-3 and with a week of championship games still remaining. They will need too many teams to count to lose to opponents they should beat. Frankly, the Longhorns aren’t likely to get in even if they are capable of going toe-to-toe with any team in the country except maybe (gulp) Georgia. The odds aren't in their favor, especially since they would have to likely climb from 16th to 10th while sitting on the sidelines. That said, the 2025 Longhorns will still bask in the satisfaction of knocking the undefeated Aggies out of SEC title contention and preventing them from running the regular-season table for the first time since 1992. Yep, the Horns delivered yet another dose of Battered Aggie Syndrome to a team that had to believe it would finally get the best of its fiercest rival only to be turned away yet again.

And the fans let the Aggies have it hours after the 12th Man's famous band marched up downtown Congress Avenue — 2,500 strong  — earlier Friday. “It’s been 5,482 days since the Aggies beat Texas,” one sign in the DKR stands read. “11-1” read another. “They answered the bell,” Sarkisian said. “They answered the bell in Round 11 and they surely answered the bell in Round 12. Around here, we call those the championship rounds.”

Sark wasn't the only one selling wolf tickets. "They should let us in," UT quarterback Arch Manning said. "We can beat anyone." It was Manning who helped keep Texas' CFP dream alive with a pair of second-half touchdowns, including a 35-yard burst to put the Horns up double digits late. They were the truth in this 2025 regular-season finale, especially in the third quarter when they outgained the Aggies 189-35 after totaling only 112 yards in the first half,

Manning's run was his second rushing touchdown against the Aggies in as many meetings and it was the perfect prelude to two defensive highlights. A&M Heisman Trophy contender Marcel Reed didn't have his best night as his attempt at a second late miracle, after the South Carolina comeback, fell short as defensive backs Michael Taaffe and Kobe Black intercepted him on consecutive fourth-quarter drives in the red zone. "The best player in college football, Arch Manning!" Taaffe bellowed as his buddy was finishing up his postgame interview.

The Horns are a good team and they believe they made the case to prove they can be great though the 29-21 loss at Florida will likely end up being the one that keeps them out of the postseason. The CFP conversation was more about where this team is going, not about the playoff-bound Aggies or the Florida loss.b"I feel like we're a playoff team," UT linebacker Liona Lefau said. "We've battled our hearts out. Obviously some games didn't go our way, but we got up and kept fighting." Texas Fight. Texas Fought. But will the Horns get to fight again in the CFP? We'll find out soon enough.

 

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Justin Wells: Top PFF grades from Texas' 27-17 win over Texas A&M on Friday

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Arch Manning and No. 16 Texas’ offense took it to the No. 3 Texas A&M Aggies in the second half on Friday from Austin. Here’s how the offense graded out, per PFF.

OFFENSE

QB – Arch Manning, 70.6

Once again, behind the arms, legs, and arm of Manning, the offense played well, especially in the second half. Manning is the unquestioned leader and maybe one of the most improved players in the program. Two more touchdowns, zero turnovers. 

RB – Tre Wisner, 69.7

Wisner shows up big in the biggest games. His 180+ yard performance was the antidote for this offense on Friday. 

WR – Ryan Wingo, 54.9, Emmett Mosley V, 61.4, Parker Livingstone, 71.3

While there were a few early drops, this group rallied and made life hell for the A&M secondary. Wingo’s TD catch was his best of 2025. 

TE – Jack Endries, 75.3, Spencer Shannon, 84.3, Nick Townsend, 62.3

This was Texas’ Tight End breakout game. Endries caught everything, Shannon led the offense in grades (76.7), and Townsend scored a touchdown. 

OL – Trevor Goosby, 72.4, DJ Campbell, 58.9, Brandon Baker, 59.1, Cole Hutson, 61.0, Connor Robertson, 69.3

The Longhorns offensive line continues to improve, and after a sluggish first half, came out in the next half firing on all cylinders. Goosby was fantastic against the SEC’s top pass rusher. 

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The Texas defense held down the Texas A&M Aggies on Friday night, even missing All-SEC LB Anthony Hill Jr for a second game. Here’s how the defense graded out, per PFF.

DEFENSE

DL/EDGE – Colin Simmons, 50.6, Ethan Burke, 76.1, Alex January, 60.1, Lance Jackson, 66.3

Burke led the front four and was tremendous once again vs the Aggies, with a blocked FG and multiple tackles.

LB – Liona Lefau, 87.1, Tyanthony Smith, 63.2, Trey Moore, 60.2

Lefau led all defenders with an 87.1 overall grade. Smith’s second half energy was needed for the Horns.

CB – Malik Muhammad, 63.8, Kobe Black, 81.9, Kade Phillips, 59.5

Black led the secondary in overall grades, brought hat, and snagged an INT. He played his best game as a Longhorn. 

S/N – Michael Taaffe, 65.1, Jelani McDonald, 57.7, Graceson Littleton, 58.4

Taaffe and McDonald each made plays when they needed them most, including Taaffe’s game-clinching INT, which we’ll call the Michael Taaffe-Texas A&M Memorial Interception. 

 

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(Ian Boyd) Five quick thoughts: Texas whips A&M

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That game seemed dicy for the Longhorns heading into halftime. The Aggies had driven the field for a touchdown while none of the Longhorn possessions had amounted to much. What’s more, a drive for a field goal to make it 10-6 before the half rather than 10-3 ended when the Aggie pressure package made a sack and forced a late punt. Then Steve Sarkisian found the Aggie Achilles heel…run defense. Quintrevion Wisner, the rival-killer, got rolling in the second half behind a variety of run schemes while Arch Manning repeatedly made plays with his legs, including the nail in the coffin on a touchdown run from 35 yards out. DKR was rocking, or salsa’ing when the Mariachi band was playing, and the Longhorns closed out the year undefeated at home and undefeated in rivalry games.

Quick thought no. 1: Wisner the rival-killer

Another big rivalry game and another massive performance from Wisner. He had 19 carries in this game for 155 yards with a pair of catches for 19 more yards. Sark figured out how to punish the Aggies and their aggressive safety fits against the run, the key was to fire off some gap scheme plays and move blockers to the edge. The Aggies got caught multiple times on sweep and power schemes outside when they tried to run under blockers and Wisner was a magician in space making tacklers miss.

I wrote Texas would need to run the ball to win this game when the Aggies inevitably widened out their linebacker splits and dared the Longhorns to win in the trenches rather than throwing into space. Texas opened with the customary Ryan Wingo perimeter screen with the wrinkle that Wingo pulled up to throw, but it was shut down along with the screen game. However the Longhorns dominated the third quarter with the run game after an inefficient first half of throwing. In four games against the Sooners and Aggies, Wisner has for 87 carries for 553 yards at 6.4 ypc with an average of 138 yards per game. He’ll go down as a Longhorn Legend for those games.

Quick thought no. 2: The defense finally cleans up

The other major key in this game was taking away the big plays which have allowed the Aggies to blow away the other 11 games on the schedule. Texas has committed busts against gun-option run schemes and various passing concepts for weeks and weeks…only to clean it up and totally redeem themselves in the final hour! From watching live in the stadium, the major key was simply an emphasis on communication of the right checks and coverages combined with an emphasis on stable Cover 3 zone. The Longhorns also mixed in a lot of Tampa 2, which kept Marcel Reed off kilter (along with the pass-rush), and lead to a few huge plays by Kobe Black. The first came blasting an Aggie slot on a quick out, the second was a late interception that was one of the final killers.

Reed was just 20-32 overall for 180 yards at just 5.6 ypa with zero touchdowns and two picks. He did do damage on the ground with 71 rushing yards on 12 carries, but those were largely scrambles and made him the leading rusher for A&M on the day. A 28-yard toss to tight end Theo Melin Ohrstrom was the longest Aggie gain of the day, only to be erased by a Michael Taaffe interception on the goal line. When it mattered most, the Longhorns played clean (assignment wise) on defense and ran the ball physically on offense. They forced the Aggies to convert third downs, fourth downs, and red zone attempts without the benefit of big plays. Lo and behold! The Aggies weren’t up for it.

Quick thought no. 3: Arch Manning was hype

Arch Manning appears to be having a great time as a Longhorn playing in all of these big games. He went tearing across the field hyping up the crowd as the game proceeded into the fourth quarter after another series of big Wisner runs. The stats were solid even if they won’t wow anyone in the record books. Manning was 14-29 after a 5-17 start and had 179 yards at 6.2 ypa. He had a single touchdown toss, when he found Wingo running across the end zone while scrambling out of the pocket. Once the run game got going the Longhorns were able to control the game in the second half.

Earlier in the game Manning kept Texas alive with the scramble before taking a terrific quarterback split zone run to the house.

Notice the poor safety angle for A&M and terrific lateral quickness from the Longhorn quarterback. He finished with seven carries for 53 yards and this score. Manning has been an absolute thorn in the side of the Aggies over the last two years and has rounded into one of the better football players in the country. Arch throws bombs, but he can move the chains and take care of the ball as well when the bombs aren’t landing.

Quick thought no. 4: So many Longhorns stepped up

The DKR home field atmosphere was terrific in this game, it’s become very hard to win in Austin against this team. Along with the crowd, Texas got contributions from a deep cast of young players to pull out this win. One of my favorites came at the start of the fourth quarter. I told my son, “they’re going to come down here and run it in with Arch, just wait.” Instead Sark lined them up under center and snuck a jet sweep to freshman tight end Nick Townsend past the Aggies.

Townsend played a fair amount in this game and lent good physicality to the Longhorn run game, but I wonder if that was also intended partly to set up this particular play. Townsend is one of the fastest tight ends to ever come to Texas and has a bright future ahead of him. Fellow tight end Jack Endries had two huge catches as well and finished as the leading receiver with 93 yards on four catches. The Longhorns also had to rotate in a lot of cornerbacks in this game, playing Black and Warren Roberson for long stretches of the game and getting terrific play all around.

At linebacker, Texas had to make do without Anthony Hill for the entire game and without TyAnthony Smith for the first half. Liona Lefau lead the team with 11 tackles in their hour of need while Ethan Burke had a terrific senior night with nine tackles and a pass break up. The offensive line had their struggles but the protection against the Aggie pass-rush, which is really something else, was actually pretty solid. Good enough to win when paired with a physical rushing attack.

Quick thought no. 5: What’s the verdict on the 2025 season?

Given the expectations for this season, losing three games and finishing 9-3 is far from the ideal finish. However all three Texas losses came on the road, two came against top five teams, and the Longhorns also beat a 9-2 Oklahoma team, this 11-1 A&M team, and the 9-2 Vanderbilt Commodores. To get into the playoffs at this stage the Longhorns would need a lot of teams to lose in upsets tomorrow. It’s frankly pretty implausible. What’s more, the Longhorns came up pretty short in the chances they got against perennial contenders like Ohio State and Georgia, not to mention the Florida meltdown. It seems reasonable that the verdict would already be in on whether the Longhorns are true national contenders. If they make the playoffs, they could always make a run, but this seems like a good ending.

 

  • Hook 'Em 1
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Ian Boyd: Why the CFP committee should choose 9-3 Texas

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I’m pals with an older Aggie fan who despises the college football playoff and routinely refers to it as the TV invitational. A real traditionalist, that guy. I think the playoff is great, but I also completely agree with his characterization. It’s an invitational tournament and the award for winning it is essentially to be crowned “National Champion” over all the participating programs by the broadcast media.

This leads us to the big question for the ESPN Championship Invitational. Who gets invited to participate for a chance of being crowned “national” champion and why? As I argued last year on behalf of Alabama, ESPN should be keen to invite teams who do their part for college football as a televised sport. I.E, the teams who regularly play challenging games of interest and perform in those games in a manner that rewards viewers for watching. 

This would be in opposition to the disgraceful way Indiana schedules, for instance. I don’t mind this year’s squad getting in, they had a great season and played well in several big games, but it’s a mistake to reward teams for avoiding competition. Because college football at the “bowl division” level is massive with multiple conferences with varying resources and fan base sizes scattered across the country, all of its postseason processes are akin to fight promotion.

For too long college football has been boxing. A sport where you can’t get the best fighters to actually fight each other. This is one of the chief challenges for the ESPN Invitational in whipping this sport into shape. Stamping out bum-hunting masked as “traditionalism.”

What if?

Just imagine if college football had a Czar who was in charge of guiding and protecting the sport on behalf of all the collective interests.  One thing he would absolutely do is optimize it for television, which is where the real revenue and form of the game is, and he’d do so by killing college football’s longstanding tradition where top programs line up tomato cans to knock over in order to claim a title via an unblemished record.

The UFC was taken over by Dana White years ago and owing to his strong leadership, the sport was designed to avoid the problem that has long plagued boxing. The problem where champions don’t want to fight anyone who could take away the belt or hinder their path to the belt. The UFC still has these issues now and then but it’s wildly superior in terms of consistently generating real fights.

The problem is who has leverage within a sport. You can’t let individualism rule the day if you want the best results for the overall group. In the fight game, smart fighter management is all about getting your fighter to the belt in the easiest way possible. We all get it and would probably do likewise in the same situation. However, if I’m a viewer and fan of the sport, I want to watch the best guys box.

Fight promotion often has to be very clever to convince people to part with their money in order to watch a champion or top, anointed contender knock over a tomato can. The phrase “puncher’s chance” exists because of this dynamic.

The UFC works differently. If you won’t fight top contenders they can strip you of the belt and all the money and power that comes with it. Superstars are not well protected and the sport relies on the competitive nature of the enterprise to generate interest rather than anointed stars. I hear people complain all the time about how Dana White doesn’t do enough for the fighters, but if the fighters have too much leverage guess at whose expense it comes?

Not ownership! It comes from you, the viewer! You’ll get management and ownership spending money to trick you into buying a crappier product. Like an SEC bye week, or Indiana playing Rutgers and everyone calling it “Big 10 competition,” or maybe Texas scheduling an extra tomato can in the future rather than Ohio State.

Right now Steve Sarkisian and the Longhorns are making the remarkably self serving argument that it would be unfair to punish them, a team which has beaten perhaps three playoff teams, because they were willing to schedule a road trip to Ohio State. Texas didn’t need to schedule Ohio State this year, or Michigan last year. The Longhorns already have an SEC slate which this year included rivals in up years, at Florida the week before the Red River Shootout, and at Georgia at night.

If Texas had ducked Ohio State and picked up a win, they’d be 10-2 now with an unassailable case over most other 10-2 squads. But Texas played Ohio State, lost and are 9-3, and now they’re going to get left out. You see the problem? The entirely self-serving argument made by Sark and Texas is correct. College football needs marquee games in the fall to build up the season and carry us until conference play begins and teams actually face real competition.

We want to see Mayweather fight Manny Pacquiao in a timely fashion. To radically disincentivize teams from playing a top non-conference opponent, especially in Week 0 or Week 1 when the sport needs promotion, makes zero sense. If Dana White were in charge of college football he’d say they were nuts for leaving Texas, a big draw that puts on good fights, off the pay-per-view card.

The rebuttals

“But Ian, aren’t you a Longhorn alumnus who attended the game last Friday with your son and perhaps had an emotional experience that has clouded your judgment? Didn’t you say a week or two ago that it doesn’t matter because Texas isn’t a serious contender?” Yes.

But, my argument is strictly on the business of college football. You definitely don’t need to include Texas in the playoff this year for the champion to have legitimacy. For anyone who wants to argue that Texas struggles to get off the ground against Ohio State means something this year, I agree. If you want to say, “you already got tested at Georgia and failed miserably,” I also agree.

The problem is that you’re going to end up rewarding teams propped up by tomato cans who will also fail the test and they’ll do so in the biggest games. Why is that better? If you find it unbecoming for a Longhorn to make this argument on Texas’ behalf (although I said the same thing last year about Alabama), then take the USC example.

When Lincoln Riley suggested USC ditch the Notre Dame game in the future to avoid an unbalanced schedule, he caught hell and was labelled a coward. But guess what? Without that game this year, USC’s record is 10-2 and they’re making a case for playoff inclusion. In future seasons if USC is 10-2 will everyone say, “that’s only because you played Oregon State instead of Notre Dame you cowards!” and cast them into the bowl games where there is weeping and gnashing of teeth?

Spoiler alert, they won’t. What if they’d successfully ducked the Notre Dame rivalry this year? One of the few “let’s have big time teams play each other in the regular season as a tradition!” games that we have? We also had this same argument last year over the conference championship games and landed on, “you can’t punish teams for playing in the conference championship game. It should only be able to boost your standing in the playoff selection process, not diminish it.”

Obviously whether you win or lose games has to matter, that’s the whole point. But we need to move this sport past the old model where teams are incentivized not to play at all because of the risk of winning and losing.  Far be it from me to side with Big Mouse, but what ESPN wants to do to college football with their “TV invitational” is actually in the best interests of the sport. They want to optimize it for television, which is still far away from where we are.

They want to make it more like the UFC where management runs the show and fighters have to fight to claim prizes, and less like boxing where managers run the show. To get there, eventually we need to include a 9-3 team over a 10-2 team because the 9-3 team played big, meaningful games during the actual season where the 10-2 team did not. No time like the present…

(RT Young) The Reheat: Ecstasy on Friday, Misery on Saturday

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Welcome to The Reheat, a weekly recap of the previous day’s game just popped out of the microwave. Look for it every Sunday-ish, rain or shine.

Ecstasy and agony in the same weekend of college football. Within the same 24 hours, in fact. I hated how salty I was on Saturday night. It felt gross compared to the high which burned inside of me while I walked out of DKR on Friday evening. 

The emotional sways of fanhood can truly make you feel like you’re a different person, can’t they? You just usually don’t experience both extremes within the same weekend. The crappy part was I started to believe after what happened Friday against Texas A&M. All season it felt like the deck had been stacked against Texas, some of that was self inflicted to be sure.

But, when outcome after outcome which would have helped Texas climb up the CFP rankings continued to go against Steve Sarkisian’s team, Longhorn fans like myself had no choice but to start licking their wounds.  Then, I talked myself into the 27-17 smashing of #3 Texas A&M being some tilting of the axis that we’d all been spinning on throughout the fall of 2025. I convinced myself the Aggie beatdown was a great reset.

Like Arch Manning and co saying screw it, we’re playing our way, so Texas turned the board game over on the table. And I did the thing where I let myself believe big things were in store for Saturday which would clear Texas’ path into the CFP. Nope. Oklahoma tried to shoot its own foot off at home, but they missed because John Mateer was holding the gun and was aiming towards the sky and LSU pulled out a grenade and blew themselves up instead. Then, Auburn continued to be Auburn in the Iron Bowl. I’m so damn tired of needing to root for them. 

And of course, there was no help from the ACC or the opponents of Notre Dame, BYU and Oregon. Just as it’s been all year. An Inside Texas poster went back to the last three weeks of the season and looked at 20 games where a seemingly realistic outcome could have helped Texas climb the CFP rankings during the stretch run. Only 3 out of 20 results went the Longhorns way. A mere 15% hit rate in a sport that’s defined by chaos. How!? 

It’s been truly miserable watching other teams this season.  But, that was the other side of the coin from the weekend. The fact of the matter is Friday was an all time football memory for me and many other Longhorn fans. To beat a rival in their return to your place after 14 years away. Sweet, indelible, forever. 

I had a friend tell me they wanted to experience the game in a vacuum. That was because of our collective anxiety going into it, but I think I’ll take his advice with its memory. I’ll remember Friday forever, as a standalone. Arch Manning’s touchdown run. Michael Taaffe’s pick. Jack Endries “get off me” to an Aggie defender. Ethan Burke’s block and Tre Wisner’s heroics. But as for Saturday? It can go to hell.

Fire The Cannon for: Tre Wisner. The Robert Horry of Longhorn running backs. 

Horns Up on Offense for: Trevor Goosby and DJ Campbell. Who abused Texas A&M’s front and made it seem as though Cashius Howell got left in College Station. Wait, did Howell stay in College Station?

Horns Up on Defense for: Burke, Taaffe and Colin Simmons. It was also Jelani McDonald’s best game all year and a coming out party for the previously dog-housed Kobe Black. McDonald, Black and Wisner – the Waco boys all had a night. Sorry, Art. 

Sarkometer (Grading Steve Sarkisian): Steve Sarkisian beats his rivals. 

Bevo’s Bucket for: The momentum killing Mariachi music during the timeout. I’m a Spurs fan, I love mariachi music. But make sure the sound is working if you’re going to go that route.

Schadenfreude of the Week: An undefeated Aggie season ending at DKR? That’s like robbing the schadenfreude buffet. 

This Piping Hot Take Burned the Roof of My Mouth: I wish I could throw out a reason Texas will get into the 12-team playoff, but I can’t. These men are cowards, Donnie. As Walter from The Big Lebowski would say. They believe in nothing besides counting W/L records and that is a travesty. Oh well, a CFP field which could have Duke or two G5 teams in it along with an OU squad that’s missing an offense and an Ole Miss lacking a coaching staff will make the format wake up real quick.

Hype Train Level: Onto next year, ugh. I wanted to see Arch in the freaking playoff, man. Vaya Con Dios into the offseason, Longhorns.

 

 

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Chris Vannini: Three-loss Texas is alive, and so is the College Football Playoff debate of SEC dreams

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AUSTIN, Texas — Arch Manning found a hole, found space, found the end zone. And with the dagger touchdown, Texas found itself back in the College Football Playoff conversation, even if everyone outside the southeastern United States doesn’t want to hear it. Apologies to the College Football Playoff committee, which in almost every one of its 13 seasons has actually had a pretty easy job in the end.

That won’t be the case this year, as Texas’ 27-17 win against Texas A&M on Friday night launched the Longhorns back into the picture, as much the committee has tried to avoid it. The bottom line is Texas does have a good case, and the SEC’s offseason complaining about the proper value of schedule strength is about to come into focus. “It would be a disservice to our sport if this team is not a playoff team when we scheduled that nonconference game,” Texas coach Steve Sarkisian said on the field after the game, referring to Texas’ Week 1 loss to Ohio State.

In his postgame news conference, Sarkisian came ready with stats. This Texas team was the first since 2019 national champion LSU to beat three teams ranked in the top 10 at the time (Oklahoma, Vanderbilt, Texas A&M). The Longhorns have the No. 5 strength of schedule according to one metric. Texas has played the teams currently ranked No. 1, 3 and 4 (going 1-2 against them), and it played Ohio State closer than anyone, a season-opening 14-7 road loss in which the Longhorns outgained the Buckeyes by 133 yards.

“It’s the message, what do we want to send to the head coaches and the athletic directors around the country?” he said. “Do you want us not to schedule Ohio State? Because if we’re a 10-2 team right now, this isn’t a discussion. We’re in the Playoff. But we were willing to go up there and play that game. So now, when you play five top-10 ranked teams in the regular season, and you go 3-2 and you schedule an Ohio State out of conference play, I surely don’t think we want to punish us to do that, because what are we all going to do? We’re all going to get out of those games, just like a lot of other teams in the country have done, and they’ve got nice, pretty records right now, but they weren’t willing to go play these games out of conference.”

He’s got a point. Just look at Notre Dame, which is 9-2 and enters the weekend ranked No. 9, with its best win coming against a three-loss USC team. The Irish lost to the Texas A&M team that the Longhorns just beat. Look at Vanderbilt, ranked No. 14 and two spots ahead of Texas, despite Texas’ win over the Commodores. Look at Michigan, with no ranked wins, sitting at No. 15, one spot ahead of Texas, despite a loss to the Oklahoma team that Texas beat.

Look at No. 13 Utah, which lost in lopsided fashion to Big 12 front-runner Texas Tech and may end the season with no top-20 wins following Arizona State’s loss Friday night. It made zero sense for the committee to jump Michigan over Texas like it did last week after the Wolverines’ 45-20 win against seven-loss Maryland, while Texas had a similarly comfortable win over nine-loss Arkansas.

But if Michigan hadn’t leapt Texas, the committee would’ve had to explain the Vanderbilt/Texas conversation the same way it has tried to avoid the Notre Dame/Miami conversation. But Texas has forced the committee’s hand. There is no world where Vanderbilt can stay ahead of Texas now, even if the Commodores beat Tennessee. “If you don’t think we’re one of the 12 best teams in the country, I don’t know what to tell you,” quarterback Arch Manning said afterward.

Texas is only where it is because it has three losses. It has three losses because it played at No. 1 Ohio State, and played the Buckeyes close. SEC commissioner Greg Sankey will pound the table over the next week making that point, and his case is a fair one. But Texas also has three losses because the Longhorns lost to a Florida team that is now 3-8. The 29-21 defeat was a bad loss at the time, and it has only gotten worse with age.

“This whole idea of, ‘Well, you lost to Florida,’ well, the team that played for the national championship last year lost to Northern Illinois at home,” Sarkisian said, referring to Notre Dame. “You’re going to punish us but you want to punish them? They were good enough to go play for a national title.” That argument is not as strong as the others. That Notre Dame team didn’t lose any more games. If Texas was 11-1 with a Florida loss, it would be in the field. If Texas was 10-2 without the Florida loss, it would be comfortably in the field.

The argument the SEC expected to make this fall about strength of schedule hasn’t come into play yet because the league is set to easily get four teams in the field. A year ago, it only got three, when three-loss Alabama was left out in favor of SMU, which had one regular-season loss. So in the offseason, the SEC shouted from the rooftops and brought pamphlets to its spring meetings to argue for altered CFP metrics and a focus on strength of schedule.

It worked. In August, the CFP announced it would add a strength of record metric and tweak its strength of schedule metric, with the goal of rewarding more good wins and punishing less the losses against good teams (though the committee did not make its numbers public).

Instead, this CFP committee has pretty clearly leaned more on the value of losses than anything else. The rankings entering Saturday featured all the undefeated teams, followed by all the one-loss teams (except BYU), then most of the two-loss teams, then the three-loss teams, with Texas atop that last group. Part of the committee’s public case for Notre Dame ahead of Miami was the quality of Notre Dame’s losses, even the one against Miami.

But Texas has too many good wins now to avoid that conversation. Now, its number of games against top competition is going to force a discussion that few other teams in the country can match. “We played five top-10 teams out of 12 regular-season games, and you look at what some other teams’ schedules were in front of us, quite frankly, it’s comical to think what their record would be if they played those teams.”

Based on the eye test, it’s impossible to predict what this Texas team is. They beat Oklahoma and Texas A&M by multiple scores and were blowing Vanderbilt off the field before a late fourth-quarter rally made the score closer than the game really was. Texas also lost to Florida and needed overtime to beat Kentucky and Mississippi State.

Can this Texas team play with anyone in the country? Yes. Can it struggle against anyone in the Power 4? Also yes. The committee’s job is going to be harder than it’s ever been. Sankey will probably flood the airwaves over the next week, saying the SEC should get five and maybe even six teams in the field. Unlike some of his other barnstorming arguments, this one’s got a fair case. The push to expand the field in 2026 will grow.

As the media headed toward Texas’ postgame news conference, a security guard directing the crowd told the group, “We’re all Ohio State fans now.” Left for dead, its quarterback deemed a flop, Texas has stormed back into the discussion. It probably still needs some help. But a lot of uncomfortable conversations the CFP committee has been avoiding are about to take center stage.

Sam Khan Jr.: Texas quarterback Arch Manning’s slow start, strong finish a microcosm of his season

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AUSTIN, Texas — On his way out of Darrell K Royal-Texas Memorial Stadium for the final time in the 2025 season, quarterback Arch Manning made a brief detour. He jogged over to gather with the Texas Cowboys, the more than 100-year-old student group and community service organization that is best known for firing Smokey the Cannon at home football games.

Manning joined the group when he was a freshman at Texas, and before he accompanied his teammates in the celebratory locker room on Friday following a 27-17 win over rival Texas A&M, Manning put on the black cowboy hat that the group wears and fired off the cannon in celebration.

Manning, whose first regular season as QB1 began with a thud in a Week 1 loss at #3 Ohio State, ended with a bang after the Longhorns’ big win over #3 Texas A&M on Friday night, keeping the Aggies out of the SEC Championship Game and keeping the No. 16 Longhorns’ slim College Football Playoff hopes alive. The Manning experience this season has been a roller coaster, filled with ups and downs. His performance on Friday night was a microcosm of what we’ve seen from him this season: A rough start punctuated by a mostly strong finish.

In Friday’s first half, Texas managed just three points, punting on five of its first six possessions. Manning was out of sorts, completing just five of his first 17 pass attempts for just 28 yards. He didn’t appear comfortable and couldn’t establish a good rhythm. Texas coach Steve Sarkisian said Manning saw the field just fine, but his feet weren’t set in the pocket.

When Manning found some early success on the ground, his eyes dropped, and he looked for escape lanes from the pocket rather than open receivers downfield. At halftime, Sarkisian said his advice to Manning was “to get his eyes back up so that he could see some of these throws down the field, because we felt like we had people open.”

In the second half, Manning did that. His footwork improved and his accuracy followed. From the final minute of the first half to the end of the game, Manning completed nine of 12 attempts, including a 29-yard touchdown to Ryan Wingo and a 54-yard pass to Jack Endries. When Texas A&M cut a 10-point Longhorn deficit to three, Manning shut the door on the Aggies with his running ability, sprinting through the heart of A&M’s defense for a 35-yard touchdown run to give the Longhorns all the breathing room they needed.

“That was him just starting to settle down a little bit,” Sarkisian said. “It wasn’t like he didn’t see what was happening. He was seeing it. I just think his feet were getting him a little out of sorts early in the game.”

The 6-foot-4, 219-pound scion of football’s royal family has gone through the wringer this season. After an offseason filled with buildup, Manning fell flat with underwhelming performances against Ohio State and UTEP. He took a beating in an Oct. 4 loss at Florida. Criticism mounted from those outside the program. None of that came from Sarkisian, who stuck by his quarterback.

“I’m forever grateful for him,” Manning said Friday of Sarkisian. “It (would be) easy for him when I wasn’t playing well, I was missing throws and probably making his play calls look bad, he could throw me under the bus, but he never did. He always uplifted me. He never blamed it on me in the media or anything. We just kept chopping wood.”

After growing up in a win over rival Oklahoma in Dallas, Manning and the Texas offense struggled a bit more in a narrow overtime win at Kentucky. It wasn’t until late in an overtime road win at Mississippi State that Manning finally got going, but once he did, things began to turn. Following the Kentucky game, Manning threw for at least 300 yards and three touchdowns in three of the next four games. He became more accurate. His off-target percentage, according to Pro Football Focus, was its lowest against Mississippi State, Vanderbilt and Georgia.

The “keep chopping wood” mantra took hold for Manning and the Longhorns on Friday against the Aggies, too. Things could have unraveled as the passing game sputtered early. To Sarkisian’s credit, he leaned on what worked — the running game — until Manning found his rhythm. Texas rode running back Quintrevion Wisner, who had his first 100-yard performance of the season. Wisner opened the second half with a 48-yard run and had 92 of his 155 yards in the third quarter.

The Longhorns offensive line, which also took its lumps early in the season, got push in the run game and performed respectably against an A&M defensive front that has wreaked havoc on others this season. Aggie sack leader Cashius Howell finished without a sack or a quarterback hurry on Friday. But Manning contributed to that effort, too.

“The blitz packages that A&M has (are) elite. It’s NFL level,” Sarkisian said. “And (Manning) managed our protections at the line of scrimmage beautifully. Did a fantastic job.” Throughout his ups and downs, Sarkisian said that Manning has emerged as “a really cool leader” this season. “These guys respond to his fire, to his energy, to his work ethic. … Nobody works harder. Nobody prepares more.”

The final stat line wasn’t the prettiest: 14-of-29 passing for 179 yards and a touchdown, plus 53 rushing yards and a score on seven carries. But Manning made the big plays Texas needed, and the Longhorns don’t win on Friday without his second-half performance. “He never lost his work ethic or his focus,” Sarkisian said. Because of that, the Longhorns have an outside shot at the CFP. Asked how he thinks he’s playing now, Manning was reserved. “Just a guy trying to win games, doing whatever it takes to win games,” he said.

Stewart Mandel: Texas A&M’s implosion vs. Texas shows the Aggies still haven’t removed the longtime hex

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AUSTIN, Texas — A school that has spent most of the last century playing second fiddle in its own state entered the second half of its 12th game still perfect. Thirty minutes from slaying its perennial tormentor. Thirty minutes from its first SEC Championship Game. Thirty minutes from exorcising generations of demons on behalf of its perpetually tortured fan base. That it all imploded so quickly, so spectacularly, makes you wonder whether there is some unknown state statute that prevents Texas A&M from having nice things. 

No. 16 Texas vanquished the third-ranked Aggies yet again on Friday, its previously dormant offense shaking free of a 10-3 halftime deficit to run away with a 27-17 upset. In doing so, the Longhorns knocked the SEC’s season-long first-place team out of the SEC championship. Gone, too, most likely, is A&M’s long-expected first-round bye in the College Football Playoff.

But most gallingly of all, the Aggies lost to freaking Texas. Again. Just like last year, when the Longhorns went to College Station and won an SEC elimination game. Most of the Aggies’ players were still in preschool the last time A&M beat Texas in 2010. “We’re tired of losing to the same team in back-to-back years, tired of not winning that trophy,” said Aggies linebacker Taurean York. “We wanted to go to the SEC championship.”

They really should have. Texas A&M looked very much in control at halftime Friday, its pass rushers bringing back out the Ohio State/UTEP/Kentucky version of Arch Manning. The Texas star was 8-for-21 for 51 yards in the first half. Unfortunately for the Aggies, though, they had to play one more half. Much of which was spent watching Texas running back Quintrevion Wisner run away from their defense.

Or their secondary completely losing Texas receiver Ryan Wingo on a wide-open touchdown throw. Or tight end Jack Endries on an even more wide-open catch and run. Or Manning himself, running nearly 35 yards untouched to the end zone. “We busted way too many things,” said York. “You can’t bust plays like that against an upper-echelon team like Texas.”

And to top it all off, Aggies QB Marcel Reed, who entered the game with realistic Heisman hopes, threw not one but two fourth-quarter interceptions to seal his team’s fate. “It was by far our worst second half of the year,” said A&M coach Mike Elko. “We didn’t play Texas A&M football at all.”

Fortunately for the Aggies, there’s still plenty of room for an 11-1 SEC team in a 12-team Playoff. While Texas A&M will likely slip out of the top four, it should still be high enough to host a first-round game at Kyle Field — a pretty cool consolation prize. The Aggies’ biggest goal of all — winning the school’s first national championship since 1939 — remains very much intact. But after a Black Friday meltdown, it’s hard to envision this team reaching that pinnacle.

The dirty little secret of A&M’s 11-0 start was that the bulk of its wins were against an extremely favorable SEC schedule. Texas was the first current Top 25 team the Aggies had faced since their signature Week 3 win at top-10 foe Notre Dame, a remarkable feat given the SEC currently has eight ranked teams. Somehow, all seven of A&M’s SEC wins came against teams that entered the final weekend of the regular season below .500 in the SEC: LSU (3-4), Missouri (3-4), Florida (2-6), Auburn (1-6), Mississippi State (1-7), South Carolina (1-7) and Arkansas (0-7). Combined league record: 11-41.

Sometimes, A&M did exactly what a great team should do against those types of opponents, most notably blowing out LSU so badly (49-25) that the school fired its coach the next day, or thumping a Missouri team playing its freshman backup quarterback (38-17). Other times, it gave up 527 yards to now 2-9 Arkansas in a 45-42 scare, or fell behind 27-0 to now 4-7 South Carolina before staging a historic comeback.

Texas was a significantly tougher test than either of those teams, and this time, A&M didn’t pass it. “We believe we can make it to the national championship,” said Reed. “We’ve had a couple of wake-up calls these past few weeks.” Reed, who left with a rolled ankle late in the first half but returned quickly, is one of the biggest reasons to believe in the Aggies. He didn’t have his best passing game Friday night (he did run for 71 yards), but he’s had plenty of good ones the past two years.

And he’s got two explosive playmakers in KC Concepcion and Mario Craver. And they’ve certainly got players up front on defense. Manning got sacked twice and driven to the ground on other occasions. The problem is, the back end of that defense sometimes just … messes up all at once. And it did so at the worst possible time Friday.

“I told them in the locker room, you can’t come on the road, you can’t go play in the games we’re going to play going forward and not play good football for four quarters,” said Elko. If there’s such a thing as a silver lining in getting embarrassed by your bitter rival and missing out on a conference championship, it’s that Texas A&M suddenly finds itself with at least three weeks off to regroup before the first round.

The Aggies need only look at last year’s national champion, Ohio State, to see the potential benefits of a pre-Playoff reset. Except there’s one big difference between the two. Ohio State has been there, done that. Texas A&M is about to try on its big kid clothes for the first time. The Aggies gave us 11.5 games of evidence that they’re maybe, finally, all grown up. But that one dispiriting second half suggests the hex has not yet lifted.

 

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