{"id":427879,"date":"2026-09-06T07:50:22","date_gmt":"2026-09-06T07:50:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/427879\/"},"modified":"2026-09-06T07:50:22","modified_gmt":"2026-09-06T07:50:22","slug":"texas-football-utilizes-new-weapons-in-dominant-win-over-texas-state-the-daily-texan","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/427879\/","title":{"rendered":"Texas football utilizes new weapons in dominant win over Texas State \u2013 The Daily Texan"},"content":{"rendered":"

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\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\tJames Simon scores a touchdown against Texas State on Saturday, Sept. 5 at DKR Stadium. \t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n

During the college football offseason, Texas head coach Steve Sarkisian emphasized the importance of finding the right transfer portal players to prepare for his team\u2019s 2026 campaign.<\/p>\n

It wasn\u2019t just about finding talent, but finding the talent best suited to complement who he already had.\u00a0<\/p>\n

In the Longhorns\u2019 59-7 victory over Texas State on Saturday, they demonstrated exactly what a team can be capable of when strong veterans and high-quality transfer portal players join forces.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cFor the first time running out of the tunnel at DKR and putting this jersey on and understanding what you\u2019re playing for, I thought (our transfers) did a nice job,\u201d Sarkisian said. \u201cI think that the veterans and the leaders on our team have done a good job of prepping them for that. \u2026 It\u2019s a big deal to play football at the University of Texas, and they recognized that, and I thought they handled it well.\u201d<\/p>\n

The crowd within the Darrel K Royal-Texas Memorial Stadium showed up hot, sweaty and eager to embrace the new faces that helped their team strive toward victory from the very first whistle.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Texas\u2019 most highly-sought after portal addition, junior wide receiver Cam Coleman, bolstered the crowd energy early with a 6-yard touchdown reception on the first drive of the game.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Junior wide receiver Ryan Wingo built off Coleman\u2019s efforts, racking up 121 yards and a touchdown. While it was difficult at times last year for Wingo to escape the elaborate coverage teams met him with, lining up on the field at the same time as Coleman forces opposing defenses to make tough decisions about coverage.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere were so many ways we felt like we had to move (Wingo) around to create opportunities for him,\u201d Sarkisian said. \u201cWith (Coleman) on the other side and the attention that he garners, it allows Ryan for a few more one-on-one opportunities. \u2026 People forget this guy was a second-team all-SEC receiver last year.\u201d<\/p>\n

Senior quarterback Arch Manning also reaped the rewards of having multiple weapons ready to make plays \u2014 both in terms of receiving and rushing.<\/p>\n

NC State transfer and senior running back Hollywood Smothers broke away for a 45-yard run on Texas\u2019 first offensive play of the game, making sure any Longhorns fans who didn\u2019t monitor the portal over this past offseason learned his name right off the bat. Arizona State transfer and fifth-year running back Raleek Brown added to the effort, accumulating two touchdowns and celebrating with a fanbase that welcomed him with open arms.<\/p>\n

Defensively, barring a few momentary lapses, the Longhorns held the Bobcats from generating much momentum. Senior transfer linebacker Rasheem Biles, who was responsible for Texas\u2019 third-quarter interception and one of its two forced fumbles, attributed the defense\u2019s success to first-year defensive coordinator Will Muschamp.<\/p>\n

\u201cHaving Muschamp on the sideline is great,\u201d Biles said. \u201cYou know he\u2019s gonna be fired up and just brings energy to the whole defense.\u201d<\/p>\n

Texas has a lot of positive energy to bring into practice this week as preparations for No. 1 Ohio State begin. A few mistakes \u2014 including an end-zone interception thrown by Manning \u2014 that worked against the Bobcats won\u2019t fly against the Buckeyes next Saturday, but Sarkisian emphasized after the game that \u201cchange\u201d isn\u2019t necessarily what he is looking for.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cAt the end of the day, we don\u2019t really have to change,\u201d Sarkisian said. \u201cWe need to practice really well, but who we are, the style of play, the way we went about our business \u2014 we\u2019re not going to really change next week.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"James Simon scores a touchdown against Texas State on Saturday, Sept. 5 at DKR Stadium. During the college…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":427880,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[27,29,28],"class_list":["post-427879","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-texas","tag-texas","tag-texas-headlines","tag-texas-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/427879","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=427879"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/427879\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/427880"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=427879"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=427879"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=427879"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}