One way or another, Arch Manning was going to be taking snaps at Sanford Stadium in the Georgia-Texas game this weekend. But if things had worked out just a touch differently, he would have been in red and black rather than burnt orange.
“They’re a good team,” Manning said earlier this week. “I was considering them until the end.”
Manning — and by extension, Texas — was the offseason’s biggest story and the early season’s biggest flameout. The Longhorns entered the season ranked No. 1 and Manning was the Heisman favorite. But following a loss to Ohio State, unimpressive September performances, struggles against Kentucky and Mississippi State and an incomprehensible faceplant against Florida, the Longhorns (7-2) have spent most of the season looking well-grilled.
But this is the SEC, where everyone beats up on everyone else, and all you have to do is keep swinging. It’s mid-November, and Texas still has a direct, if difficult, path into the SEC championship, and a reasonable path into the College Football Playoff. And from there comes the opportunity to write a whole new ending to this season’s story.
This weekend marks the season’s inflection point for Texas, a chance to carve a pathway to the playoff … or the grim realization that the Longhorns aren’t quite as back as they’d hoped.
Subplots abound. For starters, this is the third meeting in 13 months between Georgia and Texas, and the first two spawned more than enough drama to make Saturday night’s game absolute cancel-everything-else viewing. Last October’s matchup in Austin devolved into water-bottle-throwing chaos and a 30-15 Georgia victory. The SEC championship six weeks later in Atlanta saw the emergence of Georgia’s Gunner Stockton as a viable starting quarterback in a 22-19 overtime Georgia win.
That means Texas head coach Steve Sarkisian is 0-2 against Georgia’s Kirby Smart, to go along with his 0-2 records against Alabama’s Kalen DeBoer (while DeBoer was at Washington) and 0-2 against Ohio State’s Ryan Day. Big-time coaches and big-time teams go through other big-time coaches in big-game moments, and a win in Athens would quell some growing concerns. Yes, the Longhorns are 32-7 over the last two-plus seasons, including two CFP appearances. But the general consensus, from both pollsters and fans, is that it’s time for Texas to move past the semifinal stage.
Thing is, the Longhorns have quietly been getting better every week. Since that Florida loss, they’ve won four straight against SEC teams, including two top-10 teams in Oklahoma and Vanderbilt. The defense has been simply smothering, posting the conference’s best numbers against the run and leading the entire country with 34 sacks. Manning has dialed up two straight three-touchdown, 300-plus-yard passing games, and won SEC offensive player of the week after his performance against Vanderbilt two weeks ago.
Smart praised Manning’s “great composure,” noting that he’s “not really affected by many things, even the way he’s managed the hype and expectations of what he was supposed to be this year.”
Neither Georgia nor Texas controls their own route into the SEC championship. Texas A&M and Alabama currently have no SEC losses, and the Dawgs and Longhorns would need some dominoes to fall in order to get there. But barring a total November collapse, Georgia is in the CFP field and is angling for a potential first-round bye.
Texas also isn’t quite in must-win territory yet, not with a season-ending game against No. 3 Texas A&M remaining — plus a necessary win against Arkansas, of course. Winning either this weekend or the final regular-season one would put the Longhorns in position to claim a CFP bid even with three losses.
And that Georgia-Arkansas-A&M stretch provides another subplot to the season’s waning weeks: Texas’ conference-heavy late schedule as other teams face non-conference opponents. Next week, for instance, Georgia plays the Charlotte 49ers, Alabama plays Eastern Illinois and Texas A&M draws Samford, while Ole Miss is off.
“I don’t love our schedule, but it’s our schedule,” Sarkisian said earlier this week. “And so I do love it in the same breath, because it is what it is. You play the schedule, you play the hand you’re dealt. But I just don’t think there’s a lot of parity from a scheduling standpoint of who’s getting non-conference games when, and who’s getting what level of non-conference opponents, because of the impact that it has down the road when you start talking about the playoffs.”
It’s tough to feel any sympathy for Texas, given that the Longhorns and Oklahoma jumped to the SEC in 2024 long after many schedules and agreements were in place. A team ranked No. 1 at any point in the season shouldn’t be troubling itself with concerns about conference vs. non-conference opponents.
For Texas, the mantra is simple: Winning takes care of everything. And it all starts this weekend between the hedges in Athens.
“It’s my first time preparing for barking,” Manning said. “It should be fun.”
