CJ Vogel

3 Stars of the Game following the Longhorns' 23–6 victory over the Sooners in Dallas. *** Star No. 1. – CB Malik Muhammad What a return to the field it was for Malik Muhammad on Saturday. The two interceptions were clearly the headline, but Muhammad was nails otherwise. Muhammad added another pass breakup and a tackle for loss to his tally on the afternoon. We talk about players taking the jump in their contract year, well, Muhammad is doing exactly that. We saw how the perception of a true CB1 can help the Texas defense a year ago, hopefully it will do the same in 2025 with Muhammad moving forward. Star No. 2 – RB Quintrevion Wisner Something about playing against the big rivals that turns Wisner into an all-world running back. Baxter is 3-3 as a starting running back eclipsing 100 yards from scrimmage against Oklahoma and Texas A&M in his career, and his effort on Saturday was desperately needed. The Longhorns found a solid bit of rhythm with the outside zone game and Wisner's vision and patience was tremendous. Five receptions for 34 yards as well. Star No. 3 – PR Ryan Niblett A moment that will be replayed time and time again in this series moving forward put the exclamation point on this football game for the Texas Longhorns. What a moment for Ryan Niblett, what a moment for Jeff Banks' unit and what a moment for the Longhorns and their fans on Saturday. HM1 Colin Simmons: 2.5 sacks, and a career high number of sacks, Simmons has quietly put together a very solid season through the first half of the year. HM2 Arch Manning: The box score isn't the prettiest, only 166 pass yards, but Arch was nails on 3rd downs and tremendous throwing under pressure. How about being pressured 25 times and taking just one sack. He is growing up right before our eyes.

Nope. Basically "here is our team, here is the environment" A lot of the work comes from post game calls with recruits who visited for the game.

Texas hosted more OOS prospects this year in Dallas than what you would typically think. Combination of Saturday being the only opportunity this month to play in front of recruits, as well as a weaker home slate. Longhorns took advantage of the opportunity.

On some commits, Derrek Cooper arrived by himself and stayed the duration of the game. Jermaine Bishop, Smoke Matthews, Dia Bell, John Turntine III and Max Wright were all seen together, chopping it up with one another.

I'm well aware big Harv.

49 straight days of no dates.

Do not encourage this!...

Those are insane lol

That’s hilarious

Oh COME ON!!!😂😂😂😂

It’s all dependent upon the play that’s called and what is being asked of him. Plus situation. If you go to low to high or high to low on every single snap, you’re doing yourself a disservice.

That play specifically and moment is actually what helped inspire this article.

It certainly isn't encouraging.

Texas fans know, this game is won on momentum, emotion and who wants it more. I typically hate the "Team X lost because Team Y wanted it more" nonsense that you hear on broadcasts and recaps. You are telling me one team just didn't care to try and win a football game? But in the case of these Red River Shootouts, this is largely the case. You see coaches on either side of the river call trick plays and become the most aggressive version of themselves in this football game because they know they must do anything and everything to win this football game. It means that much to both football teams in a given year. In regards to Texas, playing in the 2025 Red River Shootout means playing for your season. A third loss in six games slams the door shut on every goal you hoped to achieve as the preseason No. 1 team with the Heisman favorite leading your huddles. Poof. Gone, after six weeks. It was shocking to see the Longhorns get bodied in the trenches on both sides of the ball in Gainesville. Yet, I can't help but think that performance may be copy-pasted to the Cotton Bowl in Dallas on Saturday given the body of work we have seen on the offensive line this season. However, the old adage goes A Hungry Dog Runs Faster. We will see just how hungry Texas is on Saturday. Does this team have what it takes to right the ship? To turn around what has not been a sufficient start to the season and defeat its biggest rival on a stage where things are trending in opposite directions for each team? Even bigger than that – does Texas possess the necessary leadership on its football team right now to stay the course if things start slow? Again, my answer to that remains an unknown. However, I lean towards no. For all of the talk about culture in the Texas program, this is the definition of a culture game. Rebounding from an embarrassment on national television to a team that was very much looking for a reason to punch it in and a fan base ready to fire up FlightAware is step No. 1 to getting the season back on track. Someone outside of the typical Michael Taaffes and Anthony Hills and occasional Colin Simmons has to take the reigns as a leader and ultimately will their team to a victory. This weekend will be a big test for those guys as well. You just had your food taken and eaten right in front of you in Gainesville last Saturday and only after the grave was dug did you see some fight to survive. Offensively, I don't think you have a leader. Closest thing you have right now is DeAndre Moore. I won't ever question how much he cares about winning football games. That was a guy who was so frustrated after the UTEP game, it looked like he was close to tears – and he could not even play due to injury. He cares. Texas needs more guys like that. To show that they care. Additionally, the Texas sidelines are noticeably quieter in 2025 than they were in 2024. There is no rah-rah guy. It appears to me that there are ten guys who look in a huddle on a given snap and think "We have Arch, it will be alright." Maybe that eventually becomes the case with Arch. Where the SuperMan cape is sewn into his jersey and he can't help but be the reason why the offense goes. But that clearly is not the case right now. And perhaps all of this becomes moot by the 2nd quarter of this game on Saturday. But right now, I have not seen enough to give the Texas offense any benefit of the doubt when it comes to heart and passion. This game on Saturday is great. It squeezes every ounce of passion out of teams, especially when backs are against the wall much like they are for Texas entering the weekend. But Texas must fend for itself. Until I see that hungry dog start hunting for its own food rather than waiting for the dinner bowl to be served, I fear this weekend, and subsequently the remainder of the season, could be one that turns Saturdays into a day of dread rather than excitement and anticipation.

The point of calling a screen play...is to throw the screen.

I'm keeping it the way it was for the 2H of the Florida game. If there was a better option, I believe the staff would have deployed it by now. At least, that's what I would like to believe. The three cupcake games to figure this out clearly didn't prove to mean anything.

Fortunately, we have seen the worst at Nick Brooks at LG. At least now going into TX/OU he will at least have seen a snap at the position in some capacity during practice.

I don't think it will. Zina has carved out a very solid contributing role on this team.

And again, in Flood's defense – While I don't know the specifics (yet) regarding Neto, it's tough when your 4th year expected starter at LG turns out to be completely unplayable the week of the season opener.

Two fold. One, Neto Umeozulu was showing signs of life in the spring. On pace to be the guy. Things changed, obviously, leading up to Ohio State. Now, it appears Neto has played his last down as a Longhorn. The defense was always ahead of the offense, but that is part of the growing pains of every spring. Injury to Cojoe, loss of Neto being an option is two pieces of the puzzle that were available in the spring that aren't today.

Beyond having three years of gameplanning for Arch, they also had 8 months to game plan for this offensive line getting its lunch eaten every day in practice dating back to the first day of practice in the spring. Nothing changed.

Would like to see the field spread out a bit. Just get the ball to guys in space and allow them to work. I'm with you

Wanted to add to the conversation from yesterday in regards to making life easier on the offensive side of the ball... Arch Manning currently has the smallest % of pass attempts targeting pass catchers in between yards 1–9 among Power 4 quarterbacks. There are 73 quarterbacks that qualify according to PFF. Only 25.7% of Manning's pass attempts are in the short yardage category – again, that is yards 1–9 downfield.

Good read, Jeff!

We’ll see how quickly he can get back to throwing and to what capacity that grows to over the next few days. Mateer is expected to try and ramp up his throwing Tuesday.