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    Jeff Howe
    The Texas offense’s inability to move the ball consistently and maximize scoring opportunities through three games is staggering.
    The Longhorns enter the non-conference finale at home against a 0-3 Sam Houston club on Saturday (7 p.m., SEC Network+), averaging 24 points per game and 5.39 yards per play. Steve Sarkisian’s fifth season running the program is off to the worst three-game start Texas has experienced on offense since 2014, when Shawn Watson’s unit averaged 20.7 points per game and 4.57 yards per play through the first three games of the Charlie Strong era.
    The reality of where the Longhorns are offensively, 18 days away from a trip to Florida for the SEC opener, is sobering. Injuries have sidelined Quintrevion Wisner, C.J. Baxter Jr., DeAndre Moore Jr. and Emmett Mosley V through the non-conference schedule, compounding the experience issues Sarkisian knew existed on offense, even if Arch Manning had a full complement of weapons around him.
    “I'm not naive to think we wouldn't have some growing pains,” Sarkisian said during his weekly news conference on Monday. “I just want those growing pains to... I want to get tall as fast as we can and feel good and start playing. That's the race that we're in. I'm comfortable in saying we're going to get there. I just want to get there sooner rather than later.”
    Manning has been under the gun publicly since he put up a clunker in last Saturday’s 27-10 win over UTEP, with an 11-for-25, 114-yard performance through the air. While he accounted for the offense’s three touchdowns (one passing and two rushing), the fifth start of Manning’s career was marred by a forgettable second quarter, one in which he went 2-for-12, including 10 consecutive incomplete passes, for 15 yards and an interception.
    When it comes to helping Manning get back on the right track, Sarkisian said he feels “good about the process that we're in right now,” adding that Manning “had a great practice this [Monday] morning.”
    “So many times, what happens is you can start looking at yourself, beating yourself up, focusing on yourself. Well, it's already hard enough. The other team is already trying to beat you up,” Sarkisian said. “The other team is already trying to knock you down, so let's not self-inflict wounds.
    “Let's take some of that frustration and anger out on them.”
    Nothing Sarkisian said throughout training camp foreshadowed the struggles the No. 1 team in the preseason Associated Press Top 25, a club whose players spoke openly about their national championship aspirations while being quarterbacked by the odds-on favorite for the Heisman Trophy, has experienced.
    Still, what he said roughly four minutes into his post-practice availability on Aug. 5 could be a massive red flag missed by virtually everyone with a pulse on the squad, especially since it might be the best way to describe the current state of the Texas offense.
    “One thing for us that I think, with players that are trying really hard, we have to learn to feel... we have to learn how to deal with disappointment a little bit better. What I mean by disappointment is not every play is going to go perfect,” Sarkisian said. “You might miss a block, you might not catch that ball, you might not get the yardage you thought you were going to get on the run, but you've got to get onto the next play. You’ve got to give the next play the credit it deserves because that next play has a life of its own. I think, right now, a little bit on offense, we're trying so hard that there's this level of disappointment, that we're carrying some of that to the next play and some of those mistakes are compounding on top of one another for certain players. We've got to improve upon that and, as a coach, once you can identify that, we can talk to that, we can coach to that, but I think that's something we can improve upon.”
    Even if Sarkisian, his assistant coaches and other staff members did everything they could to resolve the problem at the time, the Longhorns are still working through it on some level.
    This is a time when offensive leadership must step up. Unfortunately, the leaders on that side of the ball are on the mend physically (Cole Hutson is on the list of players whose health will be monitored leading up to Saturday’s game, along with Baxter, Moore and Wisner), aren’t playing up to their potential (along with Manning and Ryan Wingo’s struggles, D.J. Campbell has the second-most accepted penalties against him among FBS offensive linemen with five, according to Pro Football Focus) or are gaining the experience they need to maximize their leadership capabilities.
    The Longhorns won’t get out of their current predicament overnight.
    Sarkisian said on Monday that “leadership always starts with us as coaches." He remains confident that the offense will eventually get over the current dilemma.
    Nevertheless, with only one opportunity left to work on itself before entering the SEC portion of its schedule, Texas needs a heightened sense of urgency when analyzing and attacking its problems.
    “We want to see a well-oiled machine offensively, on special teams, on defense, playing our best football when our best is needed,” Sarkisian said. “We've got to get there as quickly as possible.”
    Jeff Howe
    The Texas offense is bad.
    I won’t declare it broken. I believe it can be repaired and that the Longhorns can put a product on the field capable of helping them win games in the SEC.
    But Steve Sarkisian’s offense regressed from a middle-of-the-road performance against San Jose State to a clunker in Saturday’s 27-10 win over UTEP.
    After three games, Texas is 12-for-42 on third down, 5-for-12 on fourth down and 8-for-13 in the red zone with six touchdowns, two field goals, two interceptions and three turnovers on downs.
    The Miners outperformed the Longhorns on first down (5.3 yards per play for UTEP to 4.5 for Texas), committed fewer penalties (six penalties for 34 yards for the Miners, while the Longhorns were docked 81 yards on seven penalties), got a more efficient day throwing the football from Malachi Nelson (24-for-36, 209 yards and two interceptions) than the one Texas got from Arch Manning (11-for-25, 114 yards, one touchdown and one interception) and averaged more yards per play (4.4 to 4.2 for the Longhorns).
    Scotty Walden and his staff deserve a lot of credit for showing up ready to play. UTEP wasn’t intimidated by Texas, came to town with a sound game plan and made the Longhorns work for 60 minutes.
    The 4.2 yards per play by the Texas offense marked the fifth-worst single-game output under Sarkisian. The only games in which the Longhorns have been worse under Sarkisian were losses to Arkansas (4.0 yards per play) and Iowa State (3.2) in 2021, TCU (3.3) in 2022 and last season's regular-season meeting with Georgia (3.4).
    The issues on offense exist beyond failing to play to a standard or the personnel Texas didn’t have (Quintrevion Wisner, DeAndre Moore Jr. and Emmett Mosley V were out and C.J. Baxter Jr.’s day was done after one carry). Sarkisian’s attack lacks an identity and whether it was Manning’s erratic afternoon (10 consecutive incompletions at one point), the times the offensive line lost the battle at the point of attack (the Miners didn’t record a sack, but they had five tackles for loss and 12 of the Longhorns’ 56 official rushing attempts either lost yards or went for no gain) or poor situational execution, the Texas offense found different ways to stumble throughout the day.
    The week leading up to the Sam Houston game next Saturday (7 p.m., SEC Network+) will be a time when Sarkisian must look in the mirror and determine a course of action on offense.
    The offense Sarkisian wants (and the one a lot of other people, myself included) isn’t one the Longhorns can have right now. With one non-conference game left, Sarkisian must take the information he’s gathered so far and try to build confidence across the board by building on what the offense can do well.
    It might mean that Manning runs the ball more than what Sarkisian initially expected (he ran for two touchdowns, and he and Matthew Caldwell had the longest runs from scrimmage on Saturday, both recording 14-yard gains).
    It could mean figuring out which portions of the short passing game can get Manning in a rhythm early in the game so that the defense doesn’t automatically play coverage to prevent the deep ball, rendering the passing game helpless, which is what it was for almost the entirety of the UTEP game.
    Sarkisian and Kyle Flood could examine personnel along the offensive line and try a different combination.
    Whatever answers Sarkisian comes up with, Texas can’t have a repeat performance of Saturday’s debacle the rest of the way. Even though the defense held up their end of the bargain (six tackles for loss, sacks by Hero Kanu and Zina Umeozulu and interceptions by Jelani McDonald and Graceson Littleton while holding the Miners to a 4-for-13 performance on third down and an 0-for-3 effort on fourth down) and the kicking game is showing signs of growth (Jack Bouwmeester got back on track with a 47.8-yard net punting average, Mason Shipley went 2-for-2 on field goals and Ryan Niblett had a 49-yard punt return), the offense is operating at a level so far below a championship standard that it’s hard to look beyond the next game on the schedule when envisioning the trajectory on that side of the ball.
    Jeff Howe
    AUSTIN, Texas — Steve Sarkisian wasn’t far from the truth when he joked on Monday about Colin Simmons leading the nation in penalties.
    According to Pro Football Focus, the Texas EDGE has been assessed with four penalties through two games, tying him with Ohio safety Jalen Thomeson and Colorado State EDGE JaQues Evans for the FBS lead. The number of penalties charged to Simmons is almost equal to the team-leading five pressures PFF has credited him with causing.
    Simmons (five tackles, 0.5 tackles for loss, 0.5 sacks and two quarterback hurries) is off to a slow start relative to the lofty preseason expectations placed upon him. With that said, he’s had a bigger impact heading into the seventh-ranked Longhorns’ game against UTEP on Saturday (3:15 p.m., SEC Network) than what his raw numbers indicate.
    Simmons’ PFF pass rush grade of 84.2 is tied for No. 8 in the SEC (No. 36 nationally).
    His 10.3 PFF pass rush productivity rating (a formula that combines sacks, hits and hurries relative to how many times someone rushes the passer) is tied for the 25th-best in the conference, with Ty’Anthony Smith (18.8), Anthony Hill Jr. (18.2) and Brad Spence (12.5) ahead of Simmons among Texas defenders.
    Simmons’ win percentage (percentage of "wins" against blocking on non-penalty pass rush snaps) of 31 trails only the percentages recorded by Spence (37.5) and Trey Moore (31.3) for the third-best tally on the Longhorn defense. 
    The PFF numbers indicate Simmons isn't too far away from becoming the pass-rushing force Texas needs him to be. The most significant hurdle for Simmons to clear on his way there could be cutting down on the penalties he’s drawing, which could be occurring due to, as Sarkisian said, the reigning Shaun Alexander Award winner “trying a little too hard.”
    “He's trying to jump the snap count,” Sarkisian said. “He's just got to be more mindful.”
    While pointing out that Simmons had no penalties and combined with Maraad Watson for a sack in the second half of last Saturday’s 38-7 win over San Jose State, Sarkisian said the key to Simmons unlocking his game-changing presence is as simple as settling down and focusing on his role within Pete Kwiatkowski’s defense.
    “You don't get 10 sacks in one play,” Sarkisian said. “You play within the confines of the defense. You play within the confines of the other defensive linemen, of when your rush attempts are there and how to play. You apply the game plan.
    “I thought we missed three sacks in this game,” he added. Simmons and Brad Spence were responsible for two of the three missed opportunities Sarkisian said the Longhorns had against the Spartans to get quarterback Walker Eget on the ground.
    “Our whole rush plan, if you were an edge rusher, was to rush to the upfield shoulder of the quarterback,” Sarkisian said. “All over the tape, when he got pressure, he scrambled around. He never went up in the pocket. Well, we didn't do that. We came flat and he ran around us three times.
    “We have to apply the things that we work on and practice.”
    When asked on Monday what he could do or say to help get Simmons going, Ethan Burke said that the Longhorns have only played their “first two games of a long season.” The third game against the Miners pits the Texas pass rushers against well-traveled quarterback Malachi Nelson, who has only been pressured on 12 of his 56 dropbacks (17.6 percent through two games).
    Nelson is 1-for-7 for 49 yards and has been sacked three times under pressure, according to PFF.
    If Simmons follows the advice Sarkisian and Burke have offered up publicly, he can put the struggles he's experienced through the first two games of his sophomore season in the rearview mirror.
    “I think he’s going to be just fine,” Burke said of Simmons. “Something I would say is just be confident and play fast. I think he will.”
    Jeff Howe
    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.”
    Bobby Burton
    The issues facing college sports are so vast and so varied, it’s hard for anyone to truly grasp each aspect and the interplay between all of them.
    Yet no person is trying to alter its future (or at least guide it) more than Cody Campbell, the chairman of the Texas Tech board of regents.
    For those unaware, Campbell is a native Texan who played football for Mike Leach at Tech and then entered the professional world as an oil and gas man, eventually becoming a billionaire several times over.
    I spoke to Campbell, who has been running national TV advertisements for two weeks opposing the Score Act during college football games, yesterday evening.
    At the crux of Campbell’s argument are several vital suppositions:
    1. College sports is a public trust. The people (you and I, and every other fan out there) own the assets since most of the universities are taxpayer funded or state-owned.
    Sure, there are private schools like Harvard, SMU or Rice sprinkled in.
    But Texans effectively own UT, A&M, Tech, etc. In fact, most of college football nation-wide is comprised of large state universities. For example, 15 of the 16 schools in the SEC are public entities.
    So as owners of these universities, the public’s interest should come first.
    That’s important because it deals with us - every single one of us - being stewards of the opportunities for future generations of students, whether that’s football, rowing, basketball, softball, baseball, volleyball, etc.
    2. Campbell believes the current system is financially unsustainable for way too many colleges.
    Most schools rely on football and basketball to prop up revenue for the rest of their athletic department. But if some schools can no longer compete at the highest level in those two sports, their revenue will dwindle. The concern is that Olympic sports will be cut either at the outset or eventually in a futile attempt to fund the revenue-makers.
    The hardships, according to Campbell, are creating what amounts to a financial death spiral for college sports as we know it.
    3. Players deserve a real seat at the table. The current involvement of student athletes in NCAA committees is both minimal and largely performative.
    If there are two players and 10 beauracrats on a committee, who is anyone really listening to?
    **
    So what is Campbell actually proposing?
    First, he’s trying to tackle the financial issue.
    Campbell believes that TV and media rights holders are getting a steal.
    College football is by all accounts the second most popular sport in America behind only the NFL.
    Yet college sports media rights (all sports, not just football) are sold for less than half of what the fourth most popular sport (the NBA) receives.
    According to Campbell, college sports receives approximately $5bn per year in media rights agreements from its various partners. The NBA, a less popular sport, by contrast is in the $10bn range.
    How does that occur?
    Market segmentation.
    College football rights are sold in piecemeal fashion. The SEC does its own deal with ESPN. The Big 10, the Big 12, etc., all do the same.
    Campbell believes, and he says consultants back these claims, if college football pooled its rights together, instead of working separately, that there would effectively be an additional $7bn in financial value created annually (or $70bn  over a 10-year time frame).
    College sports would go from making $5bn a year to $12bn, thus being justly paid for being the second most popular sport. And that extra cash could be used to not only keep giving opportunities to all sports at all levels, it could also pay athletes their fair share of NIL.
    On the surface, that sounds like a financial windfall, and a healthy plan for all.
    But some, like the SEC and Big 10, likely think they would be carrying too much of the weight of other conferences. Why should Texas or Ohio State prop up Fresno State?
    Well, Campbell is not naive. He doesn’t think all parties should be treated the same in every single aspect. He said obviously some schools or conferences might share disproportionately in the additional money that media pooling would provide.
    And that’s where the negotiating would and should begin in Campbell’s mind.
    Surely, the Big 12 will ask for more money than the SEC thinks the Big 12 deserves. And vice versa. Just like the conferences have jockeyed for guaranteed slots in an expanded college football playoff.
    Campbell seems to welcome the negotiation on those topics. But he can’t do that unless (or until) the Sports Broadcasting Act of 1961 is repealed or amended.
    **
    Outside of the financial value brought about by the pooling of media rights, Campbell also believes there are other benefits to be gained by a repealing of the broadcast act.
    He thinks college football could then exert more control over the future of the game rather than ceding too much of that to the TV networks.
    The NFL is seen as a forward-thinking league who controls its media partners whereas college football is largely seen as a reactive one where the networks define the sport.
    In college football, the tail wags the dog way too often.
    Things such as times of games, match-ups, etc., could be easily altered.
    For example, should Texas really be playing a 2:30 game at home in late August just because TV execs say so?
    **
    Campbell believes financial change is just one part of the long-term solution to college sports.
    He believes there should be a parallel push for a new governing body other than the NCAA. The NCAA is “painfully beauracratic”, he says.
    For example, he says they recently reduced the number of subcommittees to rule on an issue from roughly 90 to down to 30.
    Thirty subcommittees? Good luck getting everyone on board in a timely manner.
    No wonder it took the NCAA 3+ years and millions of dollars to deal with something as clear cut as the Michigan sign-stealing scandal.
    As part of a new governance, there should be true athlete representation and negotiation. That representation would cover everything from salary cap, to bargaining rights, scholarship minimums for all sports, and everything in between.
    **
    Campbell’s argument is sound and well thought out.
    But it is concerning to the two major players in college football - the SEC and Big 10.
    Both of those leagues would likely have to cede some of their control over league members and their ability to negotiate their own TV deals to a pooled-party.
    Despite the potential financial windfall, the loss of control (or the threat of it) may be a bridge too far for the SEC or Big 10.
    So that is why college sports is stuck. College football is a great sport but it’s unable to effectively define its own future because too many folks want to protect their piece of the pie.
    **
    Solutions must be negotiated.
    Here’s a potential financial solution:
    If the pooling of money could create an additional $7bn in revenue, why not apportion the additional revenue on the same pro rata basis as current TV networks do?
    Would that work?
    Is that enough to keep not just the football team afloat but also the volleyball team at Fresno State fully funded? Is that enough to make NIL legitimate at Texas,  Ohio State and Texas Tech in football and basketball?
    I don’t know. But at least it’s a starting point for a discussion.
    Whatever rout this takes, we know that rules need to be changed. And convention needs to be challenged.
    Some smart folks need to get in a room and figure it out, not just keep kicking the can down the road.
    **
    To be clear, I’m not taking sides with Campbell, the SEC or the Big 10 here.
    I simply want what’s best for college sports for the long term.
    And what is that in my mind?
    Not reducing opportunities for students across the country, increasing athlete representation, and exerting control over networks in the interest of what is best for the game and the universities.
    The goals sound so simple.
    How do we get there is the issue.
    **
    Thanks to Cody Campbell for his willingness to discuss this topic.
     
     
     
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