No. 1 Texas 30, UTSA 6: Five observations and Sunday chat

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A win is a win, but not all wins are created equal. The No. 1 Texas Longhorns are 3-0 after taking down the UTSA Roadrunners on Saturday night in Austin, but you only walked away feeling partially satisfied with how Texas performed in their final non-conference matchup of the season.

Coming off the barn burner against Ohio State, there was obviously worry and concern of a potential letdown performance in this game, and for one side of the ball that is exactly what we got. Texas is about to be on the road for a month straight, so the hope is that they use this performance as a bit of a wake up call before heading off to Knoxville next week.

The games only get harder from here on out, and they will need to do a better job of playing complimentary football.

The Texas offense played well below standard

Lets just rip the band-aid off right now. The Texas offense played like absolute dog shit on Saturday against a team that was well below their talent level. After opening up the game with three straight scoring drives the offense went into a tailspin of sorts and just could not get out of their own way.

When Arch Manning and Cam Coleman hooked up for two early touchdowns, it looked like Texas was going to put up a 50 burger without barely breaking a sweat. Instead, they struggled to sustain drives and impose their will on their opponent, who was in a dog fight with Texas State a week ago.

Manning was not great in this game and there is no way of sugarcoating it. He was missing on passes early and it never really got better from there — 16-of-33 passing for 164 passing yards is just not going to cut it from a guy many view as a future high-end draft pick. I know he wasn’t being aided by the offensive ecosystem as a whole as things progressed through the game, but that doesn’t explain away the passes that he was just flat-out missing on in this game.

Two throws standing out in my head both came on first down. One of them to Emmett Mosley in plus territory and then the other to Ryan Wingo in the red zone. The throw to Mosley was high and made it a lot tougher for him to try to come down with and the ball to Wingo wasn’t even catchable on a down where you have to give your guy a shot on coming down with it. I’ve been trying to dive through Twitter to find the clips, but so far I haven’t had any luck.

I took a A LOT of flack on Twitter last week for saying Arch played a C-level game last week against Ohio State. Well, if you were in my mentions and hated that take, then look away because Arch played about a D- game on Saturday. Arch and the offense as a whole were fortunate the defense played up to standard because otherwise this game would have been even more annoying.

Arch wasn’t the only one at fault in this. After I sung their praises last week with how they performed, the Texas offensive line took a step back in this game. Early they protected well and were getting the run game going, but then things took a turn and they begin allowing way too much pressure in protection and too much penetration in the run game. UTSA began dialing up games up front and was spamming different blitzes and the Texas offensive line just didn’t respond well or make adjustments from drive to drive.

It’s hard to tell what was going on down the field, but it seemed like Texas receivers were not consistently getting free or getting separation with the amount of times Arch had to hold the ball or just try to make something happen with his feet. For me, it felt like this was a lack of urgency and adjustment both from the personnel on the field and the coaches on the headsets. This was a matchup where you held a significant advantage from a personnel standpoint and Texas couldn’t impose its will. That’s alarming to me.

I hope Sark and his offensive staff figure out what the issue was, because Tennessee is going to take advantage of the shortcomings that UTSA could not.

The defense earned a game ball

From the first snap of the game the Texas defense came ready to play. Rasheem Biles forced another turnover by coming up with an interception and immediately set the tone for Will Muschamp’s defensive unit on Saturday night. For as poor as the Texas offense was, the Longhorns defense was very good and efficient on Saturday against the Roadrunners.

Owen McCowan was a putrid 14-of-23 passing for 70 yards passing as the Roadrunners offense only tallied 142 total yards of offense on the evening. The Texas defense held UTSA to 1-of-11 on money downs and only gave the Roadrunners to move the chains nine times on the evening. That’ll work. The run game for the Roadrunners looked like it might have a pulse and be viable early on. They ended up with 72 yards on 24 carries with a long of 12 yards. That’ll play as well.

The Texas defense gave UTSA nothing and made them like it. Aside from Texas conceding the edge against Will Henderson early on there wasn’t a bunch to be mad about for this group. They got dealt some shitty hands due to the offense playing poorly, but even when that occurred they held UTSA to three and kept them from getting in the end zone.

Jelani McDonald is a tone setter, man. The Texas defense has produced some big, clean hits early on this year.

The best part about the defense holding up their end of the bargain is that they got plenty of the young guys some run in this game. You saw plenty of different names getting some live reps throughout the flow of the game and that is exactly what you want to see in these non-conference matchups.

Kudos to the defense for turning in a stellar performance. A much stiffer challenge awaits them in Knoxville.

We got a glimpse of Derek Cooper

After getting knicked up against Texas State and missing last week, we finally got see freshman running back Derek Cooper, and brothers and sisters, I am excited to see him get more touches.

Cooper is built like a linebacker, but runs like a running back and when he gets downhill, he gets there in a hurry. When they showed the close-up of him on the broadcast, I was shocked at how big his arms were, but then I remembered that he literally played both ways in high school and actually looked decent in his defensive clips.

I know carries will be tough to come by with Smothers and Brown getting the lion’s share, but I really hope they continue to get him involved because you can see he has juice and runs hard on top of that. Texas is legitimately three deep at running back and having that depth will come in handy as we make our way through the season.

Special teams needs to improve heading into conference play

With Texas able to find quality specialists in the portal and returning Ryan Niblett as a returner, I had this phase of the game pegged as a strength entering the year. While Gianni Spetic has fared well kicking the field goals and PATs, I wasn’t too thrilled to see Mac Chiumento shanking punts on Saturday in a game where the offense was struggling to get its act together.

I also haven’t exactly been thrilled with what I’ve seen from the kickoff return and punt return units thus far when it comes to creating space for Niblett in the return game. We saw Texas flip some games on their head with their explosive special teams returner and that is something that needs to be in their back pocket in 2026. They need to tighten up things when it comes to penalties and they shouldn’t be getting tackled inside the 20-yard line when Niblett has an opportunity to bring it out on kickoffs.

I know Jeff Banks is regarded as one of the best special teams coaches in the country, and he will certainly need to earn his keep this year to keep things running smoothly in this phase of the game.

Perimeter blocking has a chance to be a strength on offense

I wasn’t thrilled with much about the offense on Saturday, but I will say one thing that I liked watching was the way tight ends and wide receivers block for each other out on the perimeter.

There is no selfishness or ego when it comes to guys getting their hands dirty as a blocker and that is something I can appreciate as an onlooker. Take Wingo for example. He didn’t have a huge role as a pass catcher on Saturday, but I saw him blocking his ass off on several occasions on screens to the outside. Seeing that kind of effort from the receiving group is encouraging and it will pay dividends when it comes to creating explosive plays over the course of the season.

We know Steve Sarkisian loves to get the ball to his playmakers in space, so seeing guys at the skill position take pride and put in effort as blockers is a great sign.

3-0 and heading into a tough stretch of the schedule that involves going on the road for a month.

The true test begins now, and regardless of how the first three weeks have gone, the Longhorns are going to have to raise their level of play heading into conference play. Yes, you showed toughness and grit in the comeback against Ohio State, but you also showed some staleness and lack of cohesion on Saturday against UTSA. Need to clean it up and get refocused, because you are getting everybody’s best shot starting next Saturday.

Watch the film, make corrections, and then flush whatever the hell that was offensively out of your system. The Other UT awaits you in Knoxville. It will be loud, and it will be hostile. We knew that though, right? These are the games you signed up for when you decided to go to the SEC. Time to go set the tone for conference play.

The 24-hour rule is officially in effect. Then it is on to the Vols.

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