By Alec Nederveld
On Saturday, the No. 1 ranked Texas Longhorns were expected to dominate a rebuilding Mississippi State team. Las Vegas thought they were 37.5 points better – a line usually reserved for Alabama and Georgia playing Vanderbilt among SEC games. However, the game ended up closer than expected, ending in a 35-13 Texas win.
Arch Manning, making his second career start looked very good once again. Manning threw 31 times, completing 26 passes for 324 yards and two touchdowns. Manning added 33 yards and another touchdown on the ground.
https://twitter.com/BleacherReport/status/1840145046496260359
Ten years ago, it would be crazy to say that Texas would play Mississippi State in an SEC conference game. The Longhorns went 6-7 in 2014, Charlie Strong’s first year while a Dan Mullen and Dak Prescott-led Mississippi State team won ten games and were ranked No. 1.
Both teams have been up and down since, but Texas hasn’t been as bad as they were in the Strong era, and they have been playing their best football since the 2000s in the last two years. Mississippi State meanwhile hasn’t had a season like 2014 since and looks to be in the midst of their worst season since 2003.
Still, Mississippi State deserves a lot of credit for how they played. First-year coach Jeff Lebby, working with true freshman Michael Van Buren Jr. at quarterback had a gameplan reliant on running the ball and chewing the clock. All things considered, that worked, and the Bulldogs’ 150 yards on the ground was the most Texas allowed all year. Same for the 13 points scored. This game was 14-6 at halftime and 28-13 late in the fourth quarter. If you’re Lebby, you take that.
More Sports News
For Texas, it just feels good to get an SEC win under your belt. Sure, it wasn’t a perfect game, you would have liked to get off the field more (Mississippi State was 8-17 on third down) and RB Jaydon Blue fumbled twice, but this still was a solid performance.
Texas has a bye next week before the biggest stretch of the year: Oklahoma in the Red River Shootout, and Georgia the following week. Georgia, as we saw in the game of the year against Alabama is beatable. Carson Beck is very good, but may have regressed from last year and Georgia has fewer weapons. Oklahoma, meanwhile is offensively inept and is coming off a struggle win over Auburn, but they did beat Texas last year.
Past those two games, the three-game stretch of at Arkansas, home vs. Kentucky, and at Texas A&M to end the year seems to be the only things that could pose some threat to the Longhorns. Texas should still be favored in all of those games. It’s been a remarkably easy schedule that feels like not much more difficult than what Texas played in the Big 12.
I don’t think this team has a ceiling in 2024, and with Manning and Steve Sarkisian, Texas will be fine for a very long time, especially at the level they’re recruiting at.
It’s a good time to be a Texas fan.
