{"id":477082,"date":"2026-10-26T11:54:16","date_gmt":"2026-10-26T11:54:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/477082\/"},"modified":"2026-10-26T11:54:16","modified_gmt":"2026-10-26T11:54:16","slug":"texas-football-why-do-longhorns-blow-big-leads-onside-kick-struggles","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/477082\/","title":{"rendered":"Texas football: Why do Longhorns blow big leads? Onside-kick struggles"},"content":{"rendered":"

AUSTIN\u00a0\u2014 Another roller-coaster Texas performance, albeit in a win over Ole Miss<\/a>, prompted\u00a0plenty of questions from readers, more than we can fit into our weekly Longhorn newsletter (you can sign\u00a0up for it below).<\/p>\n

So here\u2019s a crack at answering your questions about Steve Sarkisian, blown leads, and other\u00a0Texas football<\/a> issues of the moment.<\/p>\n

Q: With 13 penalties for about 140 yards combined with 3 turnovers, my Horns are undisciplined and definitely not contenders.\u00a0\u2014 LBZ<\/p>\n

KB: Actually, there were 14 but it was easy to lose count. Yes, this is a highly undisciplined team. Getting two unsportsmanlike conduct penalties on Kosi Okpala is totally inexcusable. It\u2019s a miracle those troubling penalties and Arch Manning\u2019s three turnovers didn\u2019t get Texas beat. These problems are not even close to getting fixed. That\u2019s on coaching.<\/p>\n

Q: Can anyone teach this team how to recover an outside kick? You let the ball through the line and if you can\u2019t pick it up, knock it out of bounds. It\u2019s not brain surgery!\u00a0\u2014 Coy<\/p>\n

KB: Apparently not. Emmett Mosley (and Graceson Littleton) and Ryan Wingo have not been able to corral two onside kicks by Ole Miss and Tennessee and easily could have cost Texas two wins. Special teams coordinator Jeff Banks is so embattled that Sarkisian needs to make a staff change in the offseason.<\/p>\n

Q: What is up with Texas and the collapses? They play lights-out in the first half and like zombies in the third quarter. Is it conditioning, overconfidence, arrogance, or what?\u00a0\u2014 Jay West<\/p>\n

KB: The Horns pucker up in the second half and especially in the third quarter at the first sign of trouble. It\u2019s just amazing that in the past six games, Texas has been outscored 44-6 in the third quarter and has yet to score a touchdown in that period since the opener against Texas State. It seems that at the first sign of trouble\u00a0\u2014 like the sack-fumble touchdown Saturday\u00a0\u2014 the team gets rattled and unnerved.<\/p>\n

Q:\u00a0Why does Sark keep running his pro-style offense that Arch Manning clearly can\u2019t master instead of a simpler offense like Indiana runs in which Arch would have a better chance at performing at the level we expected?\u00a0\u2014 Vic<\/p>\n

KB: He\u2019s very attached to his style of football and seems too stubborn to change it. Simple as that. However, he did adjust for the first time and used more slant patterns, passes to tight ends and Manning runs to give Texas\u2019 offense a new look.<\/p>\n

Q: What is the main cause of the problems with the offensive line this year, as well as last year? Is it the churning of the players each year? \u00a0Is it the coaching of the players? Is it their talent? Is it something else?\u00a0\u2014 Henry Bernstein<\/p>\n

KB: Hard to tell because Texas keeps raving about its offensive line, and it continues to be a problem. Other than Kelvin Banks Jr. and Trevor Goosby, there have been precious few stars up front. Kyle Flood has not developed this part of the team as he needs to.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"AUSTIN\u00a0\u2014 Another roller-coaster Texas performance, albeit in a win over Ole Miss, prompted\u00a0plenty of questions from readers, more…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":477083,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[27,29,28],"class_list":["post-477082","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\/477082","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=477082"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/477082\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/477083"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=477082"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=477082"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=477082"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}