Arch Manning passed for 309 yards and three touchdowns in his sharpest game of the season so far as No. 8 Texas cruised to a 55-0 win over Sam Houston on Saturday night.<\/p>\n
Manning was 18 of 21 passing and also ran for two first-half touchdowns. He connected with Ryan Wingo for touchdowns of 53<\/a> and 13 yards in the third quarter before leaving the game with Texas (3-1) leading 45-0.<\/p>\n \u201cIt felt good,\u201d Manning said. \u201cI wish I could have done that the last (three) weeks. But I\u2019m glad we did it tonight … Got the ball in my guys\u2019 hands and let them go to work.\u201d<\/p>\n Manning needed a confidence builder after a poor start to the season<\/a> and got one against the overmatched Bearkats (0-4). His passes looked crisp and decisive, and his first touchdown run saw him stand and flex<\/a> over a defender before a game official broke them up.<\/p>\n His Texas teammates were glad to see it.<\/p>\n \u201cHe got his swagger back,\u201d Texas senior safety Michael Taaffe said. \u201cEverybody knew that it was in there. What he showed tonight is what we expect.\u201d<\/p>\n Manning said he worried he\u2019d get a taunting penalty, and that he quickly apologized to the game official.<\/p>\n \u201cProbably a little much there. My mom was pretty mad about it,\u201d Manning said. \u201cI think it was some built up frustration for the past few weeks.\u201d<\/p>\n Manning had come into the game completing just 55% of his passes. The preseason betting favorite<\/a> for the Heisman Trophy had promised<\/a> several times during the week he would start playing better. At one point Saturday night, Manning completed 14 passes in a row.<\/p>\n \u201cWhen he plays a little looser and he\u2019s free, that\u2019s the best version of Arch,\u201d Texas coach Steve Sarkisian said. \u201cHe got going and started throwing the ball. Started using his legs. You could feel the bounce in his step on the field.\u201d<\/p>\n The takeaway<\/p>\n Sam Houston: The Bearkats were completely smothered by the Texas defense. Their first 15 plays totaled 17 yards with no first downs.<\/p>\n Texas: Manning shredded an overmatched opponent. After his rough start to the season, the performance should earn him a ton of credit inside the Longhorns locker room heading into the Southeastern Conference schedule.<\/p>\n Manning said he won\u2019t concern himself with the national chatter about him this week, or the critics who dismissed him after the first few games.<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019m not really worried about what anyone thinks of the narratives. I\u2019m just trying to play ball, get wins. That\u2019s most important, especially going into SEC play. Right?\u201d he said.<\/p>\n Sack attack<\/p>\n Texas preseason all-American<\/a> edge rusher Colin Simmons got his first solo sack of the season on the first play of the game. Texas finished with five sacks for the game.<\/p>\n Finding Wingo<\/p>\n Texas has been waiting for a breakout performance from Wingo, who was expected to be the big target in the passing game. He had six catches for 93 yards and now has three touchdowns over the past two games.<\/p>\n \u201cWe had some explosive plays,\u201d Sarkisian said. \u201cWe found the connection there with Arch and Ryan, which obviously is big for us.\u201d<\/p>\n Up next<\/p>\n Sam Houston plays at New Mexico State on Oct. 2.<\/p>\n Texas opens SEC play at Florida on Oct. 4.<\/p>\n ___<\/p>\n Get poll alerts and updates on the AP Top 25 throughout the season. Sign up here<\/a> and here<\/a> (AP News mobile app). AP college football: https:\/\/apnews.com\/hub\/ap-top-25-college-football-poll<\/a> and https:\/\/apnews.com\/hub\/college-football<\/a><\/p>\n Copyright 2025 by KSAT – All rights reserved.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Arch Manning passed for 309 yards and three touchdowns in his sharpest game of the season so far…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":171941,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[67],"tags":[8026,6778,1607,399,12163,398,396,397,99],"class_list":["post-171940","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-ncaa-football","tag-arch-manning","tag-austin","tag-college-football","tag-football","tag-longhorns","tag-ncaa","tag-ncaa-football","tag-ncaafootball","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/171940","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=171940"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/171940\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/171941"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=171940"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=171940"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=171940"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}