Familiar woes cost the Longhorns their shot at the CFP National Championship.
The No. 5 Texas Longhorns had a chance to overcome the odds and the oddsmakers, putting themselves in the championship game for the first time since 2009. But with the game on the line, a familiar frustration reared its ugly head and the Longhorns were on the wrong side of the falling confetti once again in the CFP in a 28-14 loss to the No. 8 Ohio State Buckeyes at AT&T Stadium in Arlington on Friday.
Red-zone scoring: Texas — 1-2 (7 points), Ohio State — 2-2 (14 points)
It’s probably not a great sign that Texas fans now have a third marquee offensive red-zone blunder to point to during the Steve Sarkisian era.
Before 4th and 8 in the 2025 Cotton Bowl, there was 4th and 11 in the 2024 Sugar Bowl, and before that, there was 4th and 2 in the 2023 Red River Showdown. All three moments are emblematic of perhaps the biggest systemic problem facing the Longhorns under Steve Sarkisian — an inability to score in the red zone in pivotal moments. In all three moments, the Longhorns trailed by one score with the ball in easy scoring position and the offense couldn’t find a way to get one yard when it mattered the most.
Across the three drives, Texas needed a combined 17 yards to put the ball in the end zone — they lost a combined seven yards and had a strip sack for a touchdown.
It has been a line of diminishing returns for Texas under Steve Sarkisian in the red zone, with the production steadily decreasing over the four seasons. His first season, and the Longhorns’ worst overall under him, boasted a 93.6 percent red-zone conversion percentage, falling to 89.66 percent in his second season. The most precipitous drop in production unsurprisingly came between the 2022 and the 2023 seasons — a decrease of 9.3 percent — the first year under Sarkisian when he didn’t have Bijan Robinson and Roschon Johnson to carry the load.
The more defining issue has been the touchdown rate, which declined from 2021 to 2023 before recovering slightly this season — from 74.5 percent to 62.1 percent to 50.8 percent and up to 63.8 percent. late in the season, however, the diminishing returns, well, returned, including two touchdowns on five red-zone trips against Texas A&M in College Station, zero touchdowns in three red-zone trips in the SEC Championship game loss to Georgia, and one touchdown in three red-zone trips in the Peach Bowl before the high-profile failure that defined the Cotton Bowl defeat.
Texas offense: 341 yards (58 rushing, 283 passing)
Once again, the way that the Texas rushing offense went was how the Longhorns went in the game. The Ohio State defense, which entered the game No. 2 in the country in yards per play, was absolutely stout against the run — allowing just 58 yards in the CFP Semifinal. The Longhorns couldn’t generate any consistent pressure on the defense on the ground, letting the Buckeyes’ defense play a more one-dimensional style and stress the passing game. Texas had just six designed runs go longer than five yards on the day — one of which was the run by Arch Manning and one was the reverse to Ryan Wingo. Texas running backs had just four rushes longer than five yards and the team as a whole had just one rush longer than 10 yards, the 13-yard zone run by Quintrevion Wisner to end the first half.
The Longhorns have fallen short of the 100-yard mark four times this year, twice against Georgia, in the CFP quarterfinals against Arizona State, and against Ohio State, needing two overtimes to get their lone win in that streak. Texas reached the mark in all of their games in 2023, thanks in large part to the individual efforts of Jonathon Brooks, but even in 2022 — with Robinson and Johnson in the backfield — they saw similar results to 2024. Texas missed the 100-yard mark three times that year, in the one-point loss to Alabama, to the one-score loss to TCU, and then again in the Alamo Bowl against Washington. Robinson and Johnson both opted out of that game and Brooks was limited with an injury, making it more of an outlier than the rest. Overall, under Sarkisian’s leadership, the Texas offense is just 1-7 when they run for less than 100 yards.
Ohio State offense: 370 yards (81 rushing, 289 passing)
While 370 yards is indeed a significant number of yards, the Longhorns defense started across the field from the most potent offense they faced in the postseason and managed to keep them relatively in check. For comparison, the Ohio State offense managed just 21 points against the Texas defense, after reaching that mark 25 minutes into the game in their semifinal win over Oregon and just 12 minutes into their opening-round blowout of Tennessee. If you remove the 75-yard debacle to end the first half, the Texas defense allowed just 6.48 yards per attempt in the game, their second-worst performance of the year and well below what they did against Tennessee and Oregon. That passing production was largely thanks to the production of freshman phenom Jeremiah Smith, who went for 290 yards and four touchdowns in those two contests.
The Texas defense held him to just one reception on three targets for three yards, his worst performance of his young career — 31 yards worse than his 34 yards against Indiana — a game they won 38-15.
Texas was once again relatively dominant on the ground, holding the talented pair of Buckeyes in check throughout the game. Heading into the contest, both of the Ohio State running backs were within striking distance of hitting 1,000 yards, and if they hit their season averages that would have done so. The Longhorns gave up just 78 yards combined to the pair and just 81 yards overall, the Buckeyes’ third-worst performance of the year.