Florida Game Recap

The Texas offensive line couldn’t protect the quarterback or get any push in the run game on Saturday. Photo: Gainesville Sun

Quick Recap

So…the sky is falling in Austin?

Hats off to the Florida Gators, who soundly beat the Longhorns in every phase of the game on Saturday. In a game where virtually nothing went right for the Horns, Florida was able to put together a brilliant game plan with near flawless execution, something we had not seen from the Gators this season. At the end of it all, it spelled a 29-21 defeat for Texas at the hands of Billy Napier and Co. In truth, the margin of defeat was a lot closer than the gulf between these teams for those 60 minutes in Gainesville. Florida controlled the line of scrimmage on both sides, rushing for 159 yards and holding the Texas running game to next to nothing, averaging a measly 2 yards per carry for 52 total yards. They also pressured Arch Manning all afternoon - I’ve seen figures between 25-35 pressures on Arch - accounting for 6 sacks, and not allowing a single sack of DJ Lagway. Lagway also thoroughly outplayed the Texas quarterback, throwing for 289 yards and a pair of touchdowns, with a 94.9 QBR. Perhaps the most surprising and disappointing outcome of the game was the inability of the Texas defense to stop Florida both on the ground or through the air. And this was a Gators offense that had been verging on pathetic throughout their first 4 games. Their special teams even won out, blocking a punt resulting in a safety for 2 points - which could have loomed large on that final Texas drive.

Florida RB Jadan Baugh enjoyed a great day on the ground, with the Longhorn defense unable to contain him for large stretches. Photo: Burnt Orange Nation

The Reality

This was a humbling and emphatic loss, and it’s not clear if the issues on the burnt orange side are even fixable at this point. There appear to have been glaring failures by Sark and the rest of the coaching staff throughout the offseason and in their preparation - there are simply too many holes and consistent problems to explain it as anything other than a coaching failure.

Ultimately, it spells a second loss already for the Longhorns, falling to 3-2 on the season. They are without a win over a power 4 opponent, becoming a punchline around college football along with our buddies in Happy Valley (thank god for Penn State). This is not at all how any of us expected the season to go, and it’s time to accept several realities facing the 2025 Texas Longhorns. This is not an elite football team. This may not even be a good football team right now. Based on how things went on Saturday, and given the remaining schedule, we may be searching for a path to a bowl game this year. This is not doomerism or dramatics! It’s the reality of how the Horns have looked in both games against power 4 opponents this year (and even in a couple of the other games) and the prospects of how that play would translate to a fairly difficult SEC schedule.

The Florida Gators celebrate a breakthrough victory in this 2025 season that had been marred by disappointment. Photo: John Raoux, AP Photo

The Good?

OK, time for some optimism.

The positive spin on this game would be, hey, it can’t get much worse than that. And that’s probably true - at least on the defensive side for Texas. After some time to digest, I do think this one was an aberration for the Longhorn defense, and we’re unlikely to see that type of performance again this year. That doesn’t mean a team won’t put up 30 points against us, but the fashion in which it happened - getting bullied at the line of scrimmage while also giving up explosive plays through the air - felt like an outlier. So, there should be nowhere to go but up, or rather, back to the norm, for the Texas defense from here. And I do have faith in them to get things corrected. With that assumption, it gives the offense more leeway to catch up and to feel its way into games as they did on Saturday in Gainesville. And it means at the end of games it won’t be too little, too late. For example, let’s say hypothetically the Horns had given up 17 points, more to their usual standard, we probably would have been fighting to pull out a 21-17 type of game, and I’m OK with that on the road in a hostile environment.

This will have to be the path forward to any type of run for Texas - grind out a bunch of close games, probably take one more SEC loss (Athens, GA seems like a tall order) and hope that gets us into a playoff picture. I’m not saying this is the most probably outcome, but if the stars align, that’s the most optimistic I’m willing to go. For now,

Texas suffers its second loss through five games, entering true must win territory. Photo: Matt Pendleton, Imagn Images

The Takeaway

Last week, I said this was a must win game for the Longhorns - mainly to demonstrate their staying power in the conference and the sport at large, and that a loss meant there was still a lot of work to do for this year’s squad. Well, that’s where we are now, and it’s still unclear what direction this loss may take Texas. We’ve seen Texas teams in the past go into a downward spiral, and others demonstrate the resilience to bounce back after a humbling loss like this. While we might have to accept the reality of what this team is, we can also believe in what they still could be. My horns will always be up.

Final score: Texas 21, Florida 29

Hook ‘em