No. 8 Texas Hits Its Stride as it Routes Sam Houston 55-0

 The No. 8 Texas Longhorns seemed to finally hit their stride as they spread the ball out and scored in a variety of ways in a 55-0 route of the Sam Houston State Bearkats on Saturday night.

As the Bearkats received the ball to get the game going, the Longhorns’ defense set the tone early as they held Sam Houston to a three-and-out, quickly giving the Texas offense possession of the ball.

Three 15+ yard passes on a 12-play drive aided the Longhorns’ offense in going 76 yards and finishing the drive with a 13-yard rushing touchdown by Jerrick Gibson. Once Sam Houston resumed possession of the ball, the Bearkats’ offense managed to go -7 yards in three plays, before punting back to Texas.

Three 10+ yard passes by Manning yet again supported the Texas offense in moving the ball 60 yards for a touchdown, but this time on a 9-play drive that was finalized by a 5-yard rushing touchdown from Manning.

It was then another 3 plays for -7 yards that forced the Bearkats to punt back to Texas.

Then it was time for wide receiver Ryan Wingo to finally get involved in the action as a reverse play in the backfield allowed Wingo to record a 32-yard rush to set the Longhorns up at the 32-yard line. Manning followed that up with a 32-yard touchdown strike to Jordan Washington, who found himself in space after a busted coverage.

The Texas offense seemed to slow on its next drive, but a 38-yard pass to DeAndre Moore, who was making his return after a concussion, put kicker Mason Shipley in range to hit a 29-yard field goal to extend the Longhorns’ lead to 24-0.

On the next Texas drive, a 21-yard pass to wide receiver Daylan McCutcheon, followed by a 39-yard pass to Ryan Niblett a few plays later, set the Longhorns up on the goal line, which allowed Manning to rush for two yards and acquire his second rushing touchdown of the game and put Texas up 31-0 at halftime.

The offense then picked up right where it left off. Manning finally hit his first true deep bomb of the season as he found Wingo deep down the field for a 53-yard touchdown.

A 49-yard punt return by Niblett immediately put Texas in the red zone, which allowed Manning to find Wingo in the end zone for a 13-yard touchdown. On the next Texas drive, Matthew Caldwell walked on the field as quarterback as Manning retired from the game with 320 total yards and five total touchdowns.

Caldwell and the offense couldn’t manage much, going 21 yards in seven plays and ultimately kicking a field goal to make it 48-0 towards the end of the third quarter.

When Caldwell took the field again, he showed a burst of speed as he took off for a 50-yard rush to put the offense in the red zone again. It was only four plays later when running back Christian Clark found his way to the end zone from 5 yards out.

The game slowly ended as neither team managed to score or do much with the ball; however, Texas did turn to freshman KJ Lacey at quarterback a couple of drives later, but took a more conservative approach, leaning more towards the run.

Texas finalized Week 4 with a 55-0 victory, giving fans a sense of renewed confidence after many struggles over the past couple of weeks. Texas will now have a bye week before traveling to The Swamp to face Florida.