Texas quarterback Arch Manning (16) is hit by Florida linebacker Jaden Robinson (29) as he throw during the first half of an NCAA college football game in Austin, Texas, Saturday, Oct. 17, 2026. (AP Photo/Eric Gay)
Eric Gay/AP Photo/Eric Gay
AUSTIN — By the fifth time he referenced the impending evaluations bound for his offense, after he clarified that it applied to both his quarterback and his play calls, Texas head coach Steve Sarkisian appeared agitated.
“I don’t know how many times I need to say it,” Sarkisian said. “We’re going to evaluate everything from an offensive perspective.”
Maybe it was the repetitive nature of his answers that got to him.
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Or the repetitive nature of his offense.
Saturday, in a 27-24 loss to Florida at DKR-Texas Memorial Stadium, No. 7 Texas lost a second consecutive game against an unranked opponent after its highly touted offense proved to be anything but potent once again. The once-top-ranked Longhorns (4-2, 1-2 SEC) must now play perfectly for the remainder of the season to keep their College Football Playoff hopes alive, but before they can dream about the postseason, they’ll need to fix a high-priced offense that’s looked broken in back-to-back games.
That, Sarkisian said quite literally five times in the immediate aftermath of the loss, is atop his to-do list in the week to come. It was a different tone than the one he took after the previous week’s loss to Oklahoma in the Red River Rivalry game at the Cotton Bowl when he refused to relinquish play caller duties and pulled the famous-last-name defense card with his supposedly prodigious quarterback. The Longhorns could then afford a singular hiccup, though, and the Sooners’ defense is a tougher test on paper than the Gators’ unit, especially in a rivalry game at a neutral location.
Saturday, in front of 103,989 fans, at a venue where the Longhorns had lost just five times in the last six years, against a reeling team who’d surrendered huge point totals in consecutive weeks, was a different scenario.
So, after the Gators (5-2, 3-2 SEC) outgained the Longhorns 313-272 with a backup quarterback, does that mean that play-calling duties are up for grabs?
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“We’re going to evaluate everything from an offensive perspective,” Sarkisian said. “Part of that is play-calling.”
Does it mean Arch Manning, who underwhelmed against possibly the conference’s worst defense, could be bound for the bench?
“Everything,” Sarkisian said, “means everything.”
That had previously been Florida’s slogan and approach to pass defense. The Gators allowed 297 passing yards per game against their first six conference opponents (the most in the league). Manning completed 14 of 20 pass attempts for only 173 yards (the fewest that any power conference quarterback has totaled against the Gators this season).
He threw half his passes at or behind the line of scrimmage because the Longhorns believed it could provide an advantage with their skill position players in space versus the Gators’ defensive backs. The strategy worked early, when the Longhorns orchestrated a 7-play, 75-yard touchdown drive to open the game, but it looked more like it did against the Sooners when they slowed down their pace and lost their ability to gain must-have yards.
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The Longhorns finished with minus-9 rush yards in the second half, went 0 for 4 on third down in the second half and allowed four sacks in the second half. They ran just six plays in the third quarter — a direct result of a 14-play field goal drive and 15-play touchdown drive from the Gators and quarterback Trammel Jones Jr. against a theoretically vaunted Longhorns defense — and surrendered what was once a 17-3 lead in the process.
Even when the Longhorns had the ball in the second half, though, they did little with it. After the Gators chewed 8:03 off the clock in the third quarter with their 15-play drive, the Longhorns responded with 6 yards and a three-and-out. After the Longhorns forced the Gators to punt on their next possession, a drive highlighted by defensive end Colin Simmons‘ lone sack of the game, they responded with 2 yards and another three-and-out.
When the Longhorns finally recorded their initial first down of the second half, with 10:40 left in the fourth quarter, they ran only four more plays after it before a turnover on downs.
“Everyone is evaluated every week,” Manning said. “That’s how it is at a school like this.”
Manning — the former top-overall recruit in the country — should be evaluated more than most. He had gaffes that didn’t outright harm the Longhorns, like when he stared down Hollywood Smothers in the flat and missed a wide open Cam Coleman for a touchdown on a seam route midway through the first quarter, or when he airmailed a deep pass that should’ve been intercepted by one of two Gators defensive backs in the area with under four minutes left in the second.
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He also had gaffes that outright sunk the Longhorns. In the fourth quarter, down 20-17 with 8:30 left, Manning was swallowed for a 3-yard loss on a fourth-and-2 scramble when he took off after his first option wasn’t open on a slant play they drew up. Two drives later, one after his lone touchdown pass of the game to Emmett Mosley V, Manning was strip-sacked by Florida defensive lineman Myles Graham in a three-point game with under two minutes left to play.
Sarkisian remarked that Manning “might have been a little quick to drop his eyes” with Mosley relatively open to the right despite the blitz in his face.
“I lost Emmett,” Manning said. “He was open, and I should have thrown to him.”
Sarkisian was asked twice whether he considered an in-game quarterback change but never directly answered the question.
“It’d be easy for me to say, ‘hey, Arch was the problem today,’ ” Sarkisian said. “Was Arch perfect? No. But nobody was perfect on offense today. We took turns today. That’s where I have to look at every aspect of what we’re doing, because if it was one person, it’d be easy.”
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It won’t get easy the rest of the way, either, with the thick of their schedule due up. The Longhorns will play four ranked teams — No. 9 Ole Miss, No. 16 Mississippi State, No. 13 Missouri and No. 22 LSU — in their next four games. They must play perfectly to seriously maintain their postseason hopes given that only two three-loss teams have ever made the 12-team playoff field.
It’ll take a better offense than this to do that.