It turned out to be unnecessarily dramatic at the end, but the Texas Longhorns managed to hold off a late push from the Vanderbilt Commodores to keep themselves alive in the postseason race with a 34-31 victory on Saturday at Darrell K Royal-Texas Memorial Stadium.
With Texas leading 34-10 to start the fourth quarter, nobody could have envisioned the game hinging on an onside kick rolling out of bounds, but the Longhorns couldn’t close the door on a dangerous Commodores team and had to sweat out the home victory.
Texas defense: 423 total yards (58 rush, 365 passing)
Through three quarters, it looked like Texas had all but shut down the Vanderbilt offense, holding the efficient Commodores to just 185 yards and 10 points through three quarters. Then, through a mix of defensive miscues, soft coverage, and some help from the officiating, Vanderbilt caught fire in the final frame and made things tight in the end. When the final gun sounded, 238 of the Commodores’ total yardage — a whopping 56.3 percent — came during the closing 15 minutes of the game. That is the highest total allowed by Texas in any quarter this year, and more than in the entire season-opening game against Ohio State.
Vandy cracked it off in big chunk plays, led by a 25-yard touchdown scramble and a 67-yard busted-coverage touchdown for 93 of its fourth quarter total. Seven of the Commodores’ total 16 explosive plays came in the fourth quarter, for an average of 11.3 yards per play to make things close at the end. Vanderbilt quarterback Diego Pavia, who had been held in check for most of the game, feasted in the final frame, averaging 12.81 yards per drop-back in the final minutes of the game. Vanderbilt was able to crack off chunks throughout the game, albeit not as frequently, with 276 of their total 365 passing yards coming on completions of 15 yards or more.
Texas defense: 6 sacks, 10 TFL, 7 QBH
It wasn’t all bad for the Texas defense — one of the keys to their early dominance over Vanderbilt was their ability to harass Pavia and keep him from truly using his legs to make plays. Going into the game, Pavia had not been sacked more than three times in his collegiate career, a number Texas eclipsed by halftime. After finishing with six sacks, Texas becomes the first SEC team since 2000 to record five or more sacks in four consecutive conference games, totaling 23 sacks over that stretch. Texas disrupted the Vanderbilt offense all game, but especially on third downs, against a team that excelled in converting them heading into the game. Four of the Longhorns’ six sacks came on third downs, and Texas followed all but one of those stops with a score.
The lone miss? When Texas went into victory formation to end the game.
Colin Simmons, who started the season slowly, has been one of the key drivers of Texas’s sack success over the last month, with 6.5 of his eight sacks in the last four games. That pushes his total to 17 for his career, inching him closer to the all-time greats at the school. If Simmons averages just one sack per game through the rest of the year, he will finish the year No. 12 in school history for sacks, putting his name next to Alex Okafor, Brian Orakpo, and Corey Redding, with a full year ahead of him. He will not likely be around for all four years, which means that without a record year, he will finish well short of the all-time school record. That being said, if he records 12 more sacks before he leaves the Forty Acres, he will pass the late Steve McMichael to finish No. 6 all-time.
Arch Manning: 25-of-33 passing, 328 yards, 3TD
The Longhorns’ offense came alive once again, building on the fourth-quarter explosion against Mississippi State and blasting the Vanderbilt defense from the opening play.
Texas’s first play from scrimmage was a swing pass to Ryan Wingo, conveniently put in front of the speedster to let him run into it at full speed, which he turned into a 75-yard touchdown. Manning missed on his next three passes, but then went the remainder of the game without consecutive incompletions. On either side of halftime, Manning went for 10 straight and four straight completions, respectively, looking in complete control of the offense as Texas went with a faster, more spread-out approach.
The redshirt sophomore was not only efficient as a passer, but also effective in keeping the chains moving for Texas, going 7-or-9 on third downs for 81 yards, converting six of them. One of the two incompletions was the long pass to Emmett Mosley that was initially ruled a touchdown, but then overturned on review, leaving an obvious pass interference penalty uncalled.
Manning is seemingly rounding into the quarterback we thought he could be preseason, becoming the first Texas quarterback to have consecutive games with more than 300 yards and three passing touchdowns since Sam Ehlinger in November 2018. In his last two games, Manning has combined for 674 yards, six touchdowns, and one interception on 8.5 yards per attempt.