Texas makes unsightly history with season-opening loss to Ohio State
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Texas was all ready to start a new era of Longhorn football on Saturday by winning one of the biggest games in recent program history.
There was Arch Manning, the latest Manning in a family of quarterbacks, who was making his debut as the starter for Texas. That would have been enough of a reason to want to get things started right, but there was more. A lot more.
There was playing the defending national champion, No. 3 Ohio State, in its own stadium, on the FOX noon ET time slot stage. If that was the only thing, it would have been big for Texas, too. But there was more — there was the revenge factor, too, for Texas, which lost to Ohio State in last year’s College Football Playoff semifinal in heartbreaking fashion.
So, Texas wanted to win for the Manning factor, for the huge showdown factor and for the revenge factor. It wanted the win because of all of that, but there was more. There was the fact that Texas just happens to be the preseason No. 1 team in the country, so there was the pressure of wanting to uphold that ranking for at least a week.
But it couldn’t do that, and it all came apart for the Longhorns, who made some dubious history in losing, 14-7, to the Buckeyes. Texas became the first preseason No. 1 team to lose its season opener since 1990. That’s 35 years, and that’s just the opposite of the kind of history that Texas wanted to make on Saturday.
Texas will have a whole rest of its season to make up for Saturday, but this loss is going to sting, for that reason and many more.
Cory Nightingale, a former sportswriter and sports editor at the Miami Herald and Palm Beach Post, is a South Florida-based freelance writer who covers Alabama for SaturdayDownSouth.com.
