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    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.
     
     
     
    Jeff Howe
    Steve Sarkisian has made it clear that he’s playing the long game when it comes to depth and managing injuries, which is why No. 7 Texas was without a few key players for Saturday’s 38-7 win over San Jose State at Royal-Texas Memorial Stadium.
    Running back Quintrevion Wisner, who rushed for a game-high 86 yards in a season-opening road loss to Ohio State, is dealing with a leg injury. Not wanting to “force the issue with him,” Sarkisian said, Wisner watched CJ Baxter Jr. (13 carries for 64 yards), Jerrick Gibson (seven carries for 38 yards) and Christian Clark (23 yards on four carries) lead the rushing attack from the sideline.
    “I wanted Christian to play more; I wanted Jerrick to get opportunities,” Sarkisian said. “It worked out for us that way.”
    The Longhorns were also without defensive tackle Alex January and wide receiver Emmett Mosley V, neither of whom dressed out for the game. OTF has learned that January’s injury absence could potentially extend into next Saturday’s home game against UTEP (3:15 p.m., SEC Network).
    “Could we have pressed him into action or not? I know we've got a really deep defensive line room. Again, I think about the big picture here with a lot of these injuries, especially early in the season,” Sarkisian said regarding January’s status. “I think about the long road that we're hoping to go on, I think about the depth on our roster and I just don't feel like sometimes we have to press guys into action that aren't healthy enough, or that could further injure themselves. The idea was to hold him and then play some of these other guys, which we were able to do.”
    During the game, DeAndre Moore Jr. appeared to catch an inadvertent fist to his head while being tackled after receiving a screen pass from Arch Manning, forcing him to leave the game early in the third quarter. Moore departed for the locker room after he was examined inside the sideline medical tent, but Sarkisian didn’t confirm the junior wide receiver’s injury after the game.
    “I couldn't see it from where it occurred, but he definitely got dinged,” Sarkisian said. “We held him after that.”
    Jeff Howe
    Seventh-ranked Texas opened the 2025 home schedule by checking a lot of boxes in Saturday’s 38-7 win over San Jose State.
    Arch Manning threw for 295 yards and accounted for five touchdowns (four passing and one rushing), quarterbacking an offense that racked up 472 yards (7.3 yards per play). Parker Livingstone recorded the first 100-yard game of his young career (128 yards and two touchdowns on four receptions) and CJ Baxter Jr. (13 carries for 64 yards) paced the running game, which averaged 5.2 sack-adjusted yards per attempt (162 yards gained on 31 non-sack rushing attempts).
    Pete Kwiatkowski’s defense forced four turnovers (two fumbles forced by Anthony Hill Jr., one forced by Ty’Anthony Smith and an interception by Jaylon Guilbeau), which the offense turned into 21 points. The Longhorns limited the Spartans to a combined 4-for-17 effort on third and fourth down (4-for-15 on third down) and held them under 100 yards on the ground (85 total, 2.9 yards per attempt).
    With that said, the undisciplined, sloppy nature that clouded the 31-point margin of victory is best summarized by how the offense bookended the game.
    DeAndre Moore Jr.’s 28-yard gain on a flip pass from Manning on the first play from scrimmage was negated because of a holding penalty. Jerrick Gibson fumbled at the end of a 6-yard gain in the closing seconds of the game, marking the offense’s second turnover near the red zone.
    The toughest opponent Texas faced on Saturday was itself, and the Longhorns couldn’t get out of their way for long stretches of the game.
    — There’s no way to sugarcoat 12 penalties for 115 yards. 
    Whether the infractions were committed before or after the snap, Texas has proven itself to be a sloppy, undisciplined team eight quarters into the season. The Longhorns wanted to put a cleaner product on the field than what it showed against Ohio State, but the mission wasn’t accomplished on Saturday.
    — Along with penalties, Texas must be better situationally.
    Manning’s most egregious mistake of the game was trying to throw a ball away late in the first half, which was intercepted near the goal line. While Gibson’s fumble didn’t count as a turnover in the red zone, the Longhorns have scored three touchdowns on six red-zone possessions through two games.
    Texas is now 7-for-26 on third down on the season. The offense was 2-for-12 on third down (average to-go distance of 9.7 yards), including 0-for-6 on third-and-9 or longer.
    Manning’s interception, a situation in which he’ll hopefully take the sack and live to fight another down in the future, came with 38 seconds left in the second quarter. For the second time in as many games, the Longhorns failed to get points in a two-minute situation with the opponent set to receive the second-half kickoff.
    — I usually don’t mind the aggressiveness to come after a punt, but in a scoreless game, and with an offense in desperate need of confidence, the 15-yard penalty Texas was assessed for roughing the punter brought the defense back on the field instead of the offense opening its third possession on the plus side of the field.
    — Manning (19-for-30 throwing the football) had moments where he played with confidence, stood his ground in the pocket and delivered the ball where it needed to go. The redshirt sophomore was by no means perfect, but the chemistry he’s building with Livingstone and Jack Endries (52 yards and a touchdown on two receptions) can go a long way toward laying the 2025 passing game's foundation.
    — Moore, who left the game with an undisclosed injury, and Ryan Wingo combined to catch eight balls for 60 yards on 12 targets. While Moore’s longest gain of the day was wiped out due to a penalty and Wingo dropped what could’ve been a long third-down conversion on a ball Manning put on the money, the attention Wingo drew on a post/corner combination route and Moore’s motion near the goal line opened windows on Livingstone’s two touchdown receptions.
    — San Jose State’s tight defensive alignment made it tougher for Texas to run the ball than it should’ve been against a defense that was gashed on the ground by Central Michigan (236 yards allowed).
    Still, it seemed like the Longhorn offensive line lacked a sense of urgency in the running game, and the Spartans won their share of one-on-one battles, which resulted in four tackles for loss and more pressure on Manning (six hurries) than expected. Saturday’s performance by the offensive line didn’t measure up to the effort in Columbus.
    — After two games, the identity of the offense remains a mystery.
    Going into the season, there was expected to be a shift away from the quick-game-heavy offense Quinn Ewers operated. The short game was largely a non-factor on Saturday, the intermediate game has been erratic and the offense hasn’t connected on enough vertical shots to lean on the deep ball.
    The passing game is more of a work in progress than I expected it to be, even this early.
    — For the most part, the defense seemed willing to let San Jose State run the football and connect on short passes.
    Kwiatkowski’s plan to rely on a light box to defend the run while trying to limit yards after the catch got the job done. Nevertheless, I wouldn’t expect Texas to be as bland as it was on Saturday against the better offenses it’ll face in the SEC.
    — Whether the Longhorns' miscues can be chalked up to growing pains or not, the most frustrating aspect regarding the seemingly endless series of self-inflicted wounds is what the on-field product looked like when Texas had everything clicking.
    The Longhorns scored 28 points between the 4:10 mark of the first quarter and when there was 12:56 left on the clock in the second quarter, 21 of which came off turnovers. Unfortunately, the time surrounding the 7:14 blitzkrieg was riddled with mistakes that Texas must eliminate to be the type of team it wants to be by season’s end.
    Jeff Howe
    Steve Sarkisian’s truest words between last Saturday’s 14-7 road loss to Ohio State and the 2025 home opener against San Jose State on Saturday (11 a.m., ABC) came during his weekly press conference on Monday.
    Sarkisian was addressing the Spartans, specifically his respect for Ken Niumatalolo as a coach. Aside from the kind words, Sarkisian wrapped up his opening statement by pointing out where the Longhorns' attention should be while building toward the SEC opener, on the road against No. 13 Florida on Oct. 4.
    “Good challenge, good opportunity for us, but this week is really about us and what we do, and everybody in the organization being coachable and striving to get better this week,” Sarkisian said. “It's a lot of internal focus for us.”
    How Texas gets the job done is more important than running San Jose State (0-1), which dropped a 16-14 decision at home to Central Michigan last Friday, out of Royal-Texas Memorial Stadium like a five-touchdown favorite should do. The team’s three remaining non-conference games are an opportunity to establish an identity, something that’s desperately needed on offense after a largely forgettable afternoon in Columbus.
    It's imperative to fix the red zone issues. The Longhorns have scored just three touchdowns in 10 red-zone trips over their last four losses.
    Still, execution inside the 20 isn’t the only area where the offense has to find itself before attempting to navigate an SEC schedule.
    Texas was 5-for-14 on third down and 1-for-5 on fourth down against the Buckeyes. The Longhorns had a three-and-out in a two-minute situation before the end of the first half and ended a potential game-tying drive (with possession of the ball at their 15-yard line with 2:26 left in regulation) by turning the ball over on downs.
    Sarkisian’s club will be left wanting against the more formidable opponents on the schedule if situational football continues to be executed with such ineptitude.
    The more snaps Arch Manning logs running Sarkisian’s offense, the better the Longhorns can be. That’s if the two are on the same page, which means Manning has to execute and trust what Sarkisian dials up when playmaking opportunities arise. It's also on Sarkisian to have a better working knowledge of which portions of his call sheet will help Manning succeed situationally, especially how to most effectively start drives (the offense averaged 5.2 yards per play on first down in the loss to Ohio State, but the running game averaged 5.9 yards per attempt, while Manning was 6-for-13 through the air for 58 yards).
    The Spartans averaged the third-most pass attempts per game in FBS last season (42.5). Their run-and-shoot style of offense should be conducive to Pete Kwiatkowski’s defense negatively impacting Walker Eget (24-for-43, 308 yards, two touchdowns and two interceptions in San Jose State’s opener) far more than how often Texas got to Julian Sayin, with the game plan put together by Ryan Day and Brian Hartline minimizing the risks taken by the redshirt freshman.
    Even though Pro Football Focus only charged the Longhorns with two missed tackles in the opener, Sarkisian wants to see a more conservative effort from Texas defenders to force turnovers (the 2023 team’s loss to Oklahoma was the last game in which the Longhorn defense failed to record a takeaway before last week’s loss to the Buckeyes).
    “I thought we played with really good effort, which didn't put us in a lot of one-on-one tackle situations. We had multiple white hats around the ball to get people on the ground,” Sarkisian said during his pregame Zoom call on Thursday. “That's going to be important in this game because the run-and-shoot creates space, and half of that offense is — get the completion, make the first guy miss in the open field. Owning our leverage, wrapping when we tackle — not just trying to knock people to the ground, but wrapping up — and then the second man coming in, attacking the football, I think, is going to be big as we continue to move forward.”
    Although there’s no silver lining to the Ohio State loss, Texas knows exactly where it must improve with four weeks to go until the Longhorns head to the Swamp to tangle with the Gators. While Sarkisian’s club should travel to Gainesville with a 3-1 record in tow, how Texas approaches the next three games will go a long way toward determining how many notches the Longhorns will put in the win column when the level of competition picks back up.
    “What do we do on Monday morning to get ourselves prepared for a ball game? What do we do to try to minimize players looking too far down the road and focus on the task at hand, of what's right in front of them?” Sarkisian said Thursday. “It's not so much about what anybody outside the building thinks or doesn't think, it's truly what I believe. I've been doing this long enough to know that human nature is human nature, and we can get caught in that trap, so sometimes you coach them harder. Sometimes you point out the slightest of details that could be off to make sure that the screws are tightened up really tight and that we're ready to play.”
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