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And if your aunt had balls she’d be your uncle

OU was not a top 10 team in 2023. They were ranked 12th.

Offense hasn’t been up to the task against top 10 teams. Defense has. The one exception might be Washington but even then the turnovers are what killed us.

That OU game started so weird but yes we should have won that one. The Georgia SEC CG, too. We win by 10+ if Beck stays in the game and doesn't get injured. We took way too long to figure out Gunnar Stockton and it put us behind. I actually think we could / should have beaten Washington if we don't fumble the ball twice. That's a hard one.

I’ve seen Sark’s record of 2-8 vs the Top 10 since 2021 get thrown around as evidence he can’t win big games. I think it’s a little misleading. We were just rebuilding/not good in 2021-2022. We did good to beat anyone those years. Sark has clearly brought us back 2023 to present. Record since 2023: 2-5. Not great, but let’s take a look at the losses. 2023- OU and Washington 2024- Georgia x2, tOSU 2025- tOSU Which of these games “should” Sark have realistically won? I’d argue OU, UGA in SEC CG and (maybe) tOSU this year. Washington in 2023 and tOSU in 2024 were just better teams (than almost everyone in the country for UW and everyone for tOSU). I’d argue Sark is 2-3 in Top 10 matchups he “should have” realistically won. Also, ASU and Clemson were two of the top 10 teams in the country last year imo (ASU actually finished #7). So I’d say really 3-3 or 4-3 vs teams in the 3-10 range since 2023

Great article, Jeff! Improve week over week. Let’s enjoy the journey

Many of the top ranked teams have inexperienced QBs this season. Ohio State, Oregon, Georgia and Notre Dame all chose to go with a QB who was developing on their roster last year but didn't really play much. I'm sure some of it came down to QBs available in the portal. Many of those teams had portal QBs last year that were fifth and sixth year players. Not available now.

Speaking of growing pains, I'm going to go a bit off character and ask a question for thought that I know could illicit some "stop over-reacting" comments. It's not a criticism of Sark, or Arch, or how the offense has looked the last couple of games, but rather something that I started pondering after thinking about how other teams have won or played for championships lately. Sarks QB strategy is clearly to recruit a HS QB he likes every year and develop them. Hopefully for a year or two before they have to start. Is this the smartest way to go? The Pros: Before a QB has to start a game, they have had a year or two to sit and learn Sark's complicated offense. It's also likely to be more sustainable and build more depth than relying on transfers. The Cons: Inevitably, even if a 5 star prospect has spent a couple of years learning the system, at some point you are going to be relying on a QB with little to no game experience to start. There are growing pains for at least the early part of the season. Also, you can project what a HS QB could develop into in college, but you don't really know until they are on the field. Some are just misses (Weigman, Arnold, Nelson, Uiagalelei are just a few of the 5 stars lately that didn't exactly flourish at their initial destination) Both teams that played in the national championship game last year did so with portal QBs. Oregon has been a top 5 team the last 3 years with Nix and then Gabriel, and looks to be very good again this year with Moore. OU is unfortunately looking better than I would like with Mateer. I have always liked Sark's recruit and develop the best HS QB strategy (Quinn wasn't a traditional experienced portal transfer), but I can see what some teams are preferring to take the route of bringing in a proven transfer each season and trying to avoid the inevitable growing pains of a first-year starter.

It's silly to give up on anyone on this roster right now, those who do, will always be looking for the next best thing.

During the Quinn years, I never had the confidence we had the roster to win a championship. I did believe we were talented, but I felt there were teams we didn't match up well against. This year I have that confidence in the roster, that doesn't mean I think they will win it all just that they can. There are some things I need to see to shore up that confidence, but I realize this is a young team and there will be ups and downs. So buckle up buttercups 🤣 it's going to be a wild, bumpy ride🤘🏿

re: clark, i'm hoping it was first game jitters. Gerry said he had the most violent one-cut ability of any of the backs we had last year. That was pre-injury, so hopefully, it will come back as he gets more comfortable. wouldn't give up on him just yet, but hopefully, james simon gets some touches as well!

this. 💯

Great article Jeff! I don’t expect a clean performance this weekend, but I’m hoping to see notable improvement across the board especially with penalties.

I'm sure all the other teams are crying about their misses since we had the #1 class and got all their recruits.

“You think, 'Is this just us? Are we screwed up?' So telling about how he feels so far.

Great stuff jefe 🤘🤘🏼

Vision is something you have or you don't. If Simon has it, contrary to how many here feel here, this is the line you want to run behind. 🤣 Arch however, may have nightmares for awhile.

I really hope he gets some good snaps this weekend.

AUSTIN, Texas — When the dust settled on last Saturday’s 38-7 win over San Jose State, Steve Sarkisian parked himself in front of a television at home with his son, Amayas, for the afternoon and evening slate of college football games. Sarkisian's respite came after No. 7 Texas was assessed the second-highest number of single-game penalties (12) and yards (112) in his tenure. Even while achieving a 31-point margin of victory over the Spartans, the Longhorns fell short of their championship standard. Texas struggled at times to get out of its way at the same time as No. 2 Penn State was making a 34-0 win over FIU “harder than it needed to be in a lot of areas,” coach James Franklin said afterward. “Get better” was Georgia’s message after the Bulldogs slugged through a 90-plus-minute weather delay in a 28-6 win over Austin Peay. Clemson trailed Troy at home, 7-0, when play was stopped due to the weather. The Tigers rallied for a 27-16 victory, avoiding what would’ve been a disastrous 0-2 start to a season that coach Dabo Swinney’s team entered with sky-high expectations. “This group really hadn’t had the rat poison,” Swinney said on Monday. The two-time national championship-winning coach put his own twist on a metaphor made famous by Bill Parcells and Nick Saban to summarize his team's struggles. “They’ve just had the ‘you suck’ poison. The Tigers’ only loss remains a 17-10 defeat at the hands of LSU in the season opener. The Bayou Bengals dealt with their own issues in Week 2, winning a 23-7 decision over Louisiana Tech, after which coach Brian Kelly saying he wasn't “happy with the production across the board.” The issues in State College, Athens, Clemson and Baton Rouge don’t absolve the Longhorns from the mistakes they must fix in their two remaining non-conference games before opening SEC play in the Swamp against Florida on Oct. 4. Still, it can’t hurt Sarkisian, his coaches or his players to know that they’re not the only highly-ranked team dealing with varying degrees of issues through two games. “You think, 'Is this just us? Are we screwed up?' Well, some pretty good teams were struggling,” Sarkisian said. “There were some other teams that looked really good. Maybe they're a little ahead of the curve? I don't know. “I just trust in our process of getting our guys ready to go." Even though Trevor Goosby and Arch Manning were among the talented prospects waiting in the wings to move up the depth chart into more significant roles in 2025, Texas only returned 40 percent of its offensive production from a 13-win, College Football Playoff semifinalist. ESPN’s Bill Connelly ranked the Longhorn offense No. 103 nationally in returning production, which contributed to Texas ranking No. 81 in overall returning experience. The multi-year impact of the transfer portal and the expiration of pandemic-related eligibility extensions made the conditions ripe for inexperience to be a significant problem across college football. According to Connelly, the national average for returning overall experience at the FBS level has declined every season from a 76.7% mark in 2021 down to a 53.2% national average in 2025 (with 51 percent of the production back from 2024, the Longhorns are below the national average). The lack of experience, even for one of the most talented rosters in the country, could explain why adjectives like 'sloppy' and 'undisciplined' accurately describe the product Texas has put on the field through two games. It could also be the root the Longhorns, as Sarkisian put it on Monday, giving in to human nature and failing to show up with the required levels of mental intensity and focus for the San Jose State game. “You come off a really big game on the road for your season opener and human nature is, 'Let's take a deep breath and relax.' We don't get to relax,” Sarkisian said. “Our mental intensity needs to be as high as it needs to be. We need to play with the right type of discipline throughout the week — on Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday and Friday. That discipline is what's going to lead to the proper habits of how we practice, which, ultimately, will lead to the consistency in our play, which will lead to the growth that all of us need to make." The process of showing up every day with the right frame of mind, Sarkisian said, starts with him and the coaches, a group dealing with their own growing pains. Sarkisian’s Texas staff wouldn’t be the first to miscalculate the issues inexperience can create after coaching clubs chock-full of talented veterans to the doorstep of the national championship game each of the last two seasons. If the Longhorns want to find out whether or not the third time is the charm, things need to come together sooner rather than later and result in a cleaner, more detail-oriented product on the field. For that to happen, Texas must show for Saturday’s game against UTEP (3:15 p.m., SEC Network) more prepared to play to its lofty internal standard compared to how it handled last weekend's home opener. “Our standard is the only scoreboard that matters,” Sarkisian said. “We've got to play to our standard. The scoreboard up there will take care of itself.” View full news story

Sounds like Rod fixed it, on 3rd and 4 or more, throw it to Parker. He down there somewhere.

James Simon is. That is one back we need to see early if we want to identify a backup to Wisner.

We won't know until SEC play Sark isn't going to give us much. But I don't expect many explosive runs until he comes back, Baxter isn't an explosive back he's a bruiser and inside/gap scheme back.

It's legit

“The Garland native possesses elite speed, boasting a 10.39 wind-aided 100m in the spring. In April, Jackson clocked a wind-legal 10.53 100m“ Yes please