Stallled drives and missed opportunities against UTSA exposed critical offensive cracks. Steve Sarkisian must restore elite finishing power before the Longhorns face a daunting SEC road test.
Texas spent the first two weeks of the season making one of football's hardest jobs look remarkably simple.
Get inside the 20. Finish the drive.
Through wins over Texas State and Ohio State, the Longhorns scored touchdowns on nine of their 11 red-zone possessions — an 81.8% clip. They scored on 10 of those 11 trips overall, with an interception against Texas State serving as the lone empty possession.
Against UTSA, that touch disappeared.
No. 1 Texas still walked out of DKR-Texas Memorial Stadium with a 30-6 win Saturday, and there isn't much worth complaining about when a team wins by 24 points. But with SEC play beginning at Tennessee next weekend, one piece of an otherwise comfortable victory deserves more attention than the final score suggests.
Texas reached the red zone five times against UTSA.
Two ended in touchdowns.
That's 40%.
The first came when Arch Manning found Cam Coleman from three yards out in the second quarter. The last came when freshman Derrek Cooper punched it in from a yard out with 8:57 remaining and the outcome all but decided.
In between, Gianni Spetic kicked field goals from 34 and 23 yards, while another promising third-quarter possession reached the UTSA 12 before ending on downs at the 14. Texas also had another drive stall outside the red zone and require Spetic to connect from 52.
That's what made Saturday such a strange contrast to what happened one week earlier.
Texas entered the fourth quarter against Ohio State trailing 23-3. From there, Steve Sarkisian's offense produced touchdown drives of 91, 72 and 73 yards — all three ending inside the red zone. Ryan Wingo caught a three-yard touchdown before Hollywood Smothers finished the final two possessions with one-yard scores.
When Texas had absolutely no margin for error against the No. 1 team in the country, it delivered three touchdowns in three possessions.
A week later, with its defense suffocating UTSA and the scoreboard providing plenty of breathing room, that same precision wasn't there.
That's the part worth carrying forward.
Manning's 17-of-33 passing line will draw attention, as will an offense that never produced the kind of explosion many expected against UTSA. But Texas moved the football well enough to create chances. It simply kept exchanging opportunities for touchdowns with Spetic appearances.
Saturday gave the Longhorns enough margin to get away with it.
The defense allowed only two field goals and never surrendered the end zone, meaning every three points Texas added made an already difficult comeback increasingly unrealistic.
Tennessee won't necessarily offer that same luxury.
The Longhorns head to Neyland Stadium next Saturday for their SEC opener, where possessions inside the 20 will carry considerably more weight. Settling for three after moving deep into opposing territory may not matter when the other offense can't score a touchdown.
That isn't a formula Texas can expect to lean on every week.
The good news? The Longhorns already showed what this offense can look like when every possession becomes precious.
Ohio State found out the hard way.
Against UTSA, Texas didn't need that version of itself.
Pretty soon ... it will.
