No. 3 Texas 20, Arkansas 10: Five observations and Sunday chat

The Longhorns improve to 9-1 on the season with a win in Fayetteville.

Survive and advance. That is all that matters at this point in the season. The No. 3 Texas Longhorns entered this matchup coming off a sound win over the Florida Gators and they quickly found themselves in a slog with the Arkansas Razorbacks up in Fayetteville.

Points were at a premium on Saturday afternoon, and at the final whistle the Longhorns once again found themselves on the winning side of the ledger, 20-10, despite being held to their second-lowest point total of the 2024 campaign. Hogs like playing in the mud and they definitely muddied up this contest after getting their doors blown off by the Rebels a couple weeks ago.

They say in rivalry games that you should throw out the records and that certainly held true in this one. Despite Texas being double-digit favorites, they were never able to pull away from Arkansas and had to grind this one out down the home stretch, killing the final 6:55 of the game and ending it in victory formation. They can’t all be pretty, but you will take them however you can get them when you are trying to make the playoff field.

Lets get to the observations from Saturday’s victory over Sam Pittman’s Hogs.

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The Texas defense is elite

Not much more can really be said about Pete Kwiatkowski and Johnny Nansen’s bunch this year. They buoyed the Longhorn effort on Saturday and were the real MVPs up in Fayetteville. Arkansas’ offense entered the matchup averaging 483.6 yards per game (fifth in the country) and 33.1 points per game (33rd in the country). The Longhorns defense held them to 231 total yards and 10 points on Saturday. The yardage is Arkansas’ low mark of the season and the point total is tied for their lowest output of the season

The Texas defense produced a lot of havoc and had the Arkansas out of sorts majority of the afternoon. The Razorbacks produced one quality drive on Saturday and that came in the third quarter, where they took the ball 75 yards and scored their only touchdown of the day. Outside of that, their longest drive of the game was 48 yards and that ended in a fumble.

I have to gush a little bit here about Colin Simmons, as the true freshman was once again at it being a menace. Simmons tallied two sacks and two tackles for loss, and he now leads the team once again in sacks on the year with six. On the day, the Longhorns tallied six sacks of Arkansas quarterback Taylen Green and stacked up nine tackles for loss to go along with two turnovers forced.

The defense is championship-caliber. You can say what you want about who they have played who has been under center. They just keep balling and producing results and that is all that matters.

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A very meh performance from Quinn Ewers and the Texas offense

Arkansas defensive coordinator Travis Williams has developed a reputation for putting together opponent-specific game plans, and on Saturday we saw him deploy the three-high safety look that has given Texas head coach Steve Sarkisian and quarterback Quinn Ewers issues for years now. The result was Ewers ending the day 20-of-32 passing for 176 yards and two touchdowns with both of them going to wide receiver Matthew Golden.

Golden now has eight receiving touchdowns on the year and that leads the entire SEC. Despite Ewers finding the end zone twice, he never seemed comfortable letting it rip all game long and he once again ran into the issue of self-sacking himself. At some point, Ewers and Sarkisian are going to have to solve the riddle that is the “flyover” defense, as you can bet on teams rolling out variations of it as long as it continues to give them issues.

On the ground, running backs Quintrevion Wisner and Jaydon Blue combined for 142 yards rushing while Jerrick Gibson only received two touches for five yards this week after being the leading rusher and getting the most carries last week against Florida. I am not sure why his usage is so inconsistent, but I really thought after last week he was shaping up for a bigger role in the offense moving forward.

All and all, it was so-so performance. The Texas offense will see two quality defensive opponents to close out the season in Kentucky and Texas A&M.

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Game balls to Jahdae Barron and Alfred Collins

Game ball numero uno goes to numero siete.

And game ball numero dos goes to numero noventa y cinco.

These two dudes have been absolute studs for the Longhorns over the course of the year and they showed up in a major way on Saturday. Barron was the best player on the field, and he further strengthened his case for the Thorpe Award by stuffing the stat sheet and making impact plays. Barron finished the afternoon with seven tackles, two tackles for loss, a sack, an interception, and one pass broken up. He’s been the best player this year on a very talented defense and the choice to come back to school has been a fantastic one.

Now lets talk about Big Al. Collins is another upper classman who opted to return to school for one more ride to try to improve his draft stock and win a national championship. Consistency issues plagued him during his younger years on campus, but over the past two years the light bulb has come on and now he is starting to live up to the five-star billing he came to Austin with.

Just like Barron, Collins absolutely stuffed the stat sheet against Arkansas on Saturday with seven tackles, two tackles for loss, one sack, and the critical forced fumble in the fourth quarter when Arkansas was driving that allowed Texas to run out the clock. He doesn’t always have the counting stats to show how impactful he is for the Longhorns defense, but he definitely got his this week and then some.

Getting both Barron and Collins back for another year were huge recruiting wins for the Texas staff even though they were not your typical recruitments.

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Texas played a clean-ish game on the road

Playing a clean game has been a challenge for Texas this year, but in front of a hostile road crowd in Fayetteville they managed to do just that. The Longhorns were only flagged twice for 15 yards over the course of the ball game and they did not turn the ball over to the Razorbacks, though Jaydon Blue did put the ball on the ground. Fortunately for the Longhorns, that ball squirted harmlessly out of bounds and didn’t end up biting them in the tush.

Texas was not as crisp as they would have liked to be on offense, but they did not compound the issue by being reckless and careless with the ball like we’ve seen over the course of the season. The running back room has certainly struggled with ball security this year, but at this point it is what it is and you have to ride with it for better or for worse.

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The Texas offense counter punched when it needed it most

In the third quarter, the Longhorns found the momentum shifting in favor of the home team after they had carried it most of the ball game. The Razorbacks had scored 10 straight points and made it a three-point ball game and it was critical that their struggling offense find a way to stop the bleeding.

The Texas offense proceeded to put their big boy pants on and march off an eight-play, 75 yard touchdown drive that was capped off by a Ewers touchdown pass to Matthew Golden.

We’ve seen Ewers and Golden hook up like this at least three times now and they’ve all come at big times. In real time, I called this a culture drive because of how the offense was able to respond at that critical moment in the game. If they come out and continue to sputter on that drive, things could have gone drastically different with how the momentum was swelling for Arkansas.

This team continues to be tough and resilient. I know they certainly wanted to put some demons to bed by getting this win in Fayetteville after what happened a few years ago. They accomplished that mission on Saturday.

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9-1.

The Longhorns are two wins away from punching their ticket to Atlanta for the SEC Championship game in their first year in the conference. The key is staying in the moment and taking things one week at a time. They control their own destiny, so there is no need to scoreboard watch or worry about anything else going on in the conference. Win two more and you are not only in the conference title game, but you will make the College Football Playoff for the second year in a row.

Just like I said after the Georgia game, the mission is still the mission. Everything is still right out in front of this team.

The 24-hour rule is officially in effect. Watch the tape, make corrections, and then it is on to the Wildcats of Lexington.