Go figure that it took Oklahoma to finally give life to Texas in 2025
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At this time last week, I watched a dejected Texas squad walk off the field as Florida players threw the horns down during “The Eyes of Texas.” It wasn’t a flukey loss in Gainesville. It was, however, the type of losses that preseason No. 1 teams don’t suffer to 1-3 squads who lacked a win vs. FBS competition. Steve Sarkisian didn’t come off like a coach who was panicked, though.
Perhaps that was responsible for the image on Saturday that nobody could’ve envisioned as 2-loss Texas left Florida. That is, one with Sarkisian rocking a Golden Hat on the heels of a blowout win in the Red River Rivalry.
A 23-6 drubbing of No. 6 Oklahoma was, by all accounts, the first time you could’ve convinced yourself that Texas was the preseason No. 1 team. Well, excluding when Arch Manning stood over that Sam Houston State defender. We don’t count that.
We could instead count Manning scampering for a 29-yard run in a 20-6 game that put the nail in the coffin for the Longhorns’ victory … along with Manning’s wave to the Oklahoma faithful who filled half the Cotton Bowl.
The Sooners, even with the return of John Mateer, brought out the Texas team that we’ve been waiting to see in 2025. Go figure.
Oklahoma deserved to be the No. 6 team in the country, and Texas deserved to be unranked. Let’s not forget that was the Longhorns’ first win against Power Conference competition in 2025. Also of note, that was Week 7.
Is Texas back? At the very least, it’s back to looking like a team that can show some toughness on a stage like that.
In the same way that it felt like Texas lost every facet of the game last week at Florida, it dominated Oklahoma in all phases
Let’s start with the fact that for the second consecutive year, Oklahoma didn’t score a touchdown against Texas. New year, new quarterback, same result, though it’s fair to mention that Michael Hawkins Jr. didn’t have anywhere near the accolades of Mateer. Healthy thumb or not, Mateer turned the ball over 3 times and it could’ve been twice as many with how the Texas defense harassed him. A week after it couldn’t sack 1-legged DJ Lagway, it held 4-fingered Mateer to 5.3 yards per pass attempt and just 37 sack-adjusted rushing yards on 9 attempts. Of course, the Longhorns sacked him 5 times for a loss of 32 yards.
Colin Simmons had 2.5 sacks, Brad Spence had 1, as did Michael Taaffe and Lance Jackson, while Malik Muhammad picked off 2 passes and freshman Graceson Littleton also stepped in front of a Mateer pass.
It was a defensive clinic. You could’ve said that was the case for Oklahoma, too, but after a first half in which it kept Texas out of the end zone, the dam broke for the elite Sooners defense. Credit some clutch throws from Manning, but Tre Wisner sparked the Longhorns offense and looked every bit like the 1,000-yard rusher he was in 2024. Wisner, who dealt with a multi-week injury in September, ran like a man who set out to save the season. He finished the day with a gritty 94 yards on 22 carries, plenty of which came after first contact. That came behind a maligned Texas offensive line that started slow, but found its rhythm in the second half.
You could really use that to describe all of Texas. If that’s a microcosm for the season as a whole, look out.
Have I mentioned yet that this was a preseason No. 1 team that’s loaded with talent? Just a few times? Well, I haven’t mentioned yet that this is a coaching staff who went to consecutive conference title games and consecutive semifinal games. Finally, it showed.
Sarkisian’s play-calling, which came under fire all week, created big throwing windows for Manning (21-for-27) and fueled a second half in which it gained 188 yards of offense. Mind you, that came against arguably the No. 2 defense in the sport.
Not too shabby.
On a day in which Texas could’ve fallen to 3-3 and watched 6-0 Oklahoma suddenly look like it had a wide-open path to Atlanta, it managed to flip the script.
The Sooners are now the ones with legitimate short- and long-term questions, not all of which are related to the health of Mateer. After all, he was just 17 days removed from thumb surgery. As Chris Fowler reminded the viewing audience on the broadcast, that was the same surgery that took Drew Brees 5 weeks to return from. Make of that what you will.
What you should make of that Texas performance is that any notion that it lacks toughness was a distant thought by day’s end. Maybe, just maybe, Texas found its identity on Saturday. Time will tell.
A week ago, Sarkisian tried to calm the sense of panic by reminding the masses that Texas was simply 0-1 in SEC play, and that it still had everything in front of it. That was a hard thing to process in the moment, given how soundly it felt like his team was beat in Gainesville.
In Dallas, his team finally stopped the bleeding. Well, technically it started Mateer’s bleeding (on his injured thumb). It stopped the bleeding in ways that an ailing Texas desperately needed.
The Longhorns finally have life in 2025.
Connor O'Gara is the senior national columnist for Saturday Down South. He's a member of the Football Writers Association of America. After spending his entire life living in B1G country, he moved to the South in 2015.
