AUSTIN– No. 7 Texas is now 1-1 after a comfortable 38-7 win over the San Jose State Spartans in Austin on Saturday. Texas cruised to victory, looking like a different team from the week prior, when the Longhorns lost to Ohio State.

Although the Longhorns’ performance seemed quite different from that in the first game, there truly wasn’t much that changed between the games, as Texas stayed fairly consistent in most areas.

So what exactly led to the Longhorns’ turnaround performance?

QB Play

The major factor at play for Texas, throughout the offseason until now, has been quarterback Arch Manning. There have definitely been some unrealistic expectations, but he is the quarterback, so no matter what, he has to perform.

The issue for the Longhorns in Week 1 was Arch Manning’s very poor performance. There’s no other way to put it, he had an off-target rate of 37% and had less than 50 yards heading into the fourth quarter; it was bad.

Later in the fourth, he did seem to hit his stride as he completed three 20+ yard passes, but it wasn’t enough, and it was too late. However, it does seem as though he’s been able to maintain that stride as he returned to Austin to face the Spartans.

Against the Buckeyes, Manning threw 17-30 for 170 yards, one touchdown, and an interception. In similar yet different ways, he threw 19-30 for 295 yards, four touchdowns, and one interception.

The difference that was made this week was his ability to read the field and go through his progressions better. So, although he attempted the same number of passes and completed just two more, he found and hit better targets all over the field.

“I thought Arch played a really good game. We were able to create explosive pass plays,” Sarkisian said. “We’re at our best as an offensive football team when we can run it and create those explosive pass plays.”

He looked better overall, but still has many things to work on. Texas fans can hope for continuous improvement from the quarterback as the Longhorns approach conference play against Florida in a few weeks.

Turnover creation

Although the defense played great against Ohio State, even looking like it could be the defense of a team that wins the national championship, it wasn’t able to create a single turnover against the Buckeyes.

It left some questioning if the defense was going to be able to make plays and change momentum, or if it was just going to be a solid defense that does its job and gets teams off the field for the most part.

Fans got an answer to that question on Saturday as the Longhorns’ defense was able to create four total turnovers, three of which were at the beginning of three consecutive drives, which set the Texas offense up with great field position.

The series of turnovers got going when San Jose State quarterback Walker Eget threw a pass that got tipped and intercepted by Texas safety Jaylon Guilbeau. Then, on the second play of the Spartans’ next drive, linebacker Ty’Anthony Smith was able to punch the ball out of the grasp of San Jose State’s running back.

Following that, the next Spartan drive resulted in a fumble forced by linebacker Anthony Hill. Three SJSU drives later, Hill forced another fumble on Spartan wide receiver Danny Scudero, making that four total turnovers created.

“We’re at our best as an offensive football team when we can run it and create those explosive pass plays,” Sarkisian said. “It wasn’t just about stopping people, but that we need to attack the football more. Clearly, we did that in the first half.”

Penalties

Penalties were something that were pretty concerning and issue-causing against Ohio State, something that even Sarkisian noted was less about the number of penalties, but more about the timing and how it damaged drives.

When the Longhorns played the Buckeyes, they finished the game with six penalties for 50 yards. Again, like Sarkisian said, it was less about the 50 yards worth of penalties, but more about when the penalties occurred. For example, one on an Ohio State third down in which the ball was broken up and would have caused a fourth down. Instead, the Buckeyes kept the ball and scored.

It’s things like that which build up over time and ultimately become an issue, which is what happened against the Spartans. The Longhorns doubled the number of penalties and more than doubled the yardage.

By the end of the game on Saturday, Texas had accumulated 12 penalties for 115 yards. Although it may not have been totally detrimental to the Longhorns through the game, it could end up being detrimental in the long run if the issue isn’t resolved.

“There’s a ton of things that we need to improve upon as a team. 12 penalties, 115 yards, came in a variety of ways,” Sarkisian said.