Following a 31-3 victory over No. 22 Missouri, the No. 7 Ole Miss Rebels will travel to Austin, Texas, to play the No. 19 Texas Longhorns, who cannot lose another game if they want to comfortably make the College Football Playoff.
The Longhorns are coming off a loss to No. 20 Florida, the same team that gave Ole Miss their only loss of the season. While Saturday night will be a must-win game for Texas, Ole Miss is looking to continue building momentum with another ranked conference win.
With that, here's everything to know about Texas heading into this Saturday's game.
Texas' Back is Against The Wall
Texas opened the season at No. 5 in the AP poll and had national championship expectations. Those expectations then grew even stronger when, in Week 2, the Longhorns had a comeback victory over the Ohio State Buckeyes, who had been ranked No. 1 at the time of the loss to Texas.
Texas would then jump to No. 1, where they would stay until they lost to unranked Oklahoma in the Red River Rivalry. Following the loss to Oklahoma, they would drop to No. 7, though most chalked the loss up to it being a rivalry game and assumed Texas would bounce back.
Unfortunately for the Longhorns, the very next week they would take their second loss of the season to then-unranked Florida. Texas would drop once again to No. 19, while Florida would jump back up into the top 25 to No. 20.
Now it's time to panic for Texas. No team has made the 12-team College Football Playoff with three losses, and Texas still plays No. 7 Ole Miss, Mississippi State, No. 22 Missouri, No. 18 LSU, Arkansas and Texas A&M.
Knowing how little margin for error there is for the rest of the season, Texas might have to make major changes soon, perhaps even at quarterback.
Arch Manning's Struggles
There's no way around it: Texas quarterback Arch Manning has been disappointing once again this season.
Manning entered the year as a favorite to win the Heisman and be selected early in the 2027 NFL Draft. Since then, he's struggled, with just 11 touchdowns in the first six games of the season. He also has six turnovers, many coming at crucial times to cost the Longhorns games.
Against Oklahoma, Manning threw two backbreaking fourth-quarter interceptions. The first came with just over ten minutes left in the game. The score was 17-17, and Manning overthrew his receiver, gifting an interception to Oklahoma's Peyton Bowen, who then ran it back for a touchdown, putting the Sooners up seven.
Texas would rally, with Manning throwing a touchdown to tie the game at 24. With 23 seconds left against Oklahoma, Texas was just past the 50-yard line with two timeouts left and seemed destined for a chance at a walk-off victory when Manning threw his second interception, allowing Oklahoma to drive down the field and win after a walk-off field goal.
Against Florida, Manning and the Texas offense had the ball down three with just over two minutes left in the game when Manning would lose a fumble while getting sacked and practically hand the game to the Gators.
Earlier today, reports came out that Texas has given backup quarterback KJ Lacey Jr. more first-team reps in practice than normal, indicating dwindling confidence in Manning. Texas head coach Steve Sarkisian stated that Manning was still the starter, but that he needed to see "a better version of Arch Manning."
History Between Both Teams' Coaches
Whether or not Arch Manning will be starting isn't the only storyline surrounding Sarkisian. Saturday's game, he'll face off against a coach he knows very well in Ole Miss' Pete Golding.
Sarkisian and Golding both come from the Nick Saban coaching tree. In 2019 and 2020, Sarkisian served as Alabama's offensive coordinator while Golding served as Alabama's defensive coordinator.
Although the two are familiar with each other, they haven't played each other since 2021, when Alabama defeated Texas in Sarkisian's first year as the Longhorns' head coach and Golding's last year as Alabama's defensive coordinator before taking the defensive coordinator job with Ole Miss.
Years later, these two will face off once again at completely different points in their careers than when they last played.
Texas' Injury Concerns
Lastly, Texas won't be coming into Saturday at 100%. Texas running back Hollywood Smothers is currently questionable for the game, and Texas edge rusher Colin Simmons is not expected to play.
Missing Smothers wouldn't be ideal, but Texas has other rushers such as Raleek Brown, who could take his place and maintain similar production. Simmons, however, is a much bigger deal.
Simmons has 10.5 sacks this season, including a 5.5-sack game against No. 11 Tennessee. No other player on Texas' defense has more than three sacks.
A high-first-round talent like Simmons being out doesn't bode well for a Texas team already on the verge of their season collapsing.
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