The 2025 college football season has already handed us plenty of curveballs and surprise teams, but as we take stock of the landscape with many teams approaching the midpoint of their year, it’s hard to argue there’s a more disappointing team in America than the Texas Longhorns.
Other teams have fallen short of preseason expectations, and certainly many of those are playing much worse than the Longhorns, who fell to 3-2 with Saturday’s 29-21 loss to unranked Florida in Gainesville. Texas’ defense has been a shining star for much of the year, starting with a strong showing against No. 1 Ohio State in a 14-7 loss in Week 1 and continuing with absolute defensive gems through the rest of the nonconference slate.
But as SEC play kicked off and the competition ramped up, Texas did not meet the moment. Ultimately, that should not come as a huge surprise, because even as the team stacked wins against lesser competition, the quality of performance was severely lacking for a team that was ranked No. 1 in the country heading into the year.
Starting on top of the mountain
The Longhorns achieved that preseason No. 1 honor — something stunningly that had never happened before in the long storied history of Texas football — largely because of the talent on the roster and the pedigree of its new starting quarterback, Arch Manning. Steve Sarkisian led this program to a Big 12 title, SEC Championship Game appearance and back-to-back years of College Football Playoff semifinal berths thanks in part to the maturation of an elite recruiting operation. It seemed as though Sarkisian had built Texas up “the right way,” stacking success year-over-year with the potential of a real peak here in 2025. The coaching staff had continuity while other contenders saw notable turnover, and with the star power of the Manning name as the cherry on top, we saw Texas begin 2025 as one of the main characters in college football.
But while Texas still looks good getting off the bus, as they say, it’s not a team that has met the standard of a title contender on offense. And five games into a 12-game regular season, we have enough of a sample set to say that this is not one of the best teams in the country. It’s perhaps one of the most dangerous teams in the country but certainly not one of the best.
Being one of the most dangerous is a nod to the overwhelming collection of talent. When Manning spins away from pressure and casually tosses a 39-yard strike right on the money to Ryan Wingo in the end zone, the Longhorns look awfully scary for opposing offenses.
But the same possession — or maybe the same quarter and certainly the same game — can also include back-breaking penalties, turnovers and an inability to establish that same connection between Manning and the receivers in the downfield passing game. The fits and starts for this Texas offense are in line with what the numbers tell us, and it’s that the Longhorns, for all their talent, struggle with execution and details.
Offensive shortcomings plague Texas
Texas entered Saturday’s game ranked 104th nationally in third down conversions (35.8%), 110th nationally in red zone conversions (75%) and 127th nationally in penalty yards per game (78.3). Those categories show the inability to lock in and play in sync during the game’s most pivotal moments. When teams don’t beat themselves and win high-leverage moments in a game, they can perform at a level close to their peak efficiency. When all of these categories are sub-par, it’s impossible to think Texas can magically flip a switch and become the monster that we were expecting to see before the season.
Those expectations, perhaps, are part of the reason that Texas has been one of the biggest disappointments of 2025. The Longhorns being out of sync offensively against their toughest foes could be a result of a team that’s playing tight under the weight of those expectations. They know how talented each of the individuals are in that locker room, and not being able to put it together on the field with consistency is a frustrating position for all of the players and coaches involved.
Maybe we should not have put those expectations on this Texas team until we saw the Longhorns win a few more of the games required to truly be the No. 1 team in the country. What Sarkisian is set to endure in the wake of Saturday’s loss in Gainesville is a reevaluation of his time at Texas.
Texas is 3-7 against the combination of Oklahoma, Alabama, Georgia and Ohio State under Steve Sarkisian. He’s a whopping 41-19 overall but well below .500 in some of the highest-profile games as Longhorns coach. Saturday’s loss to Florida doesn’t really connect to that fact, but what is now a 9-15 record in one-score games certainly does.
There’s this notion that will get some traction that Texas has annually fielded one of the more dangerous teams in the country in the last couple of years under Sarkisian. But the feeling that more could have been won or accomplished will come back to the anecdotal notion that the wheels aren’t screwed on quite tight enough for the Longhorns to win the big races.
The failures on third down showed up again against the Gators, and so did the back-breaking penalties and the inconsistency on offense. Texas was given multiple opportunities to climb back into the game and perhaps even steal one in enemy territory, which is something that the best teams will do often when playing on the road in conference play.
But this is not, as they have showed in both wins and losses, one of the best teams in the country. And the failures to achieve that status when entering the season as the No. 1 team in the rankings makes the Longhorns one of the most disappointing teams in the country.
Where does Texas go from here?
Next week, Texas will head to the Cotton Bowl for what is annually one of the biggest games on the college football calendar, squaring off against Oklahoma. It’s very possible Texas can win that game because this is a dangerous team capable of going back-and-forth with anyone. But since it’s not one of the best teams in the country, we probably should not expect it. And maybe without the weight of expectations we do see a great response from Manning and the rest of the Longhorns.
But needing to be doubted in order to achieve greatness is not a quality we think of with the No. 1 team in the country. Maybe that’s why Texas had never been the preseason No. 1 before, and it might be a while before AP voters come around and hand them that honor again.
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