Texas Football: Sarkisian doesn’t feel much different than Tom Herman

It is going to take time to digest the play in the second half of the Texas football program for new head coach Steve Sarkisian following an unbelievable collapse against the Oklahoma Sooners in the annual Red River Rivalry game. A bad loss for Sark and this Texas squad will hurt in the near term, and it doesn’t inspire a whole lot of confidence in the coaching staff moving forward.

Sark and the Longhorns had control of this game, with a 28-7 lead over the Sooners and head coach Lincoln Riley at the end of the first quarter. Texas still had a three-possession lead heading into the locker room at halftime. That looked to be enough for the Longhorns to get their first Red River win over Oklahoma since 2018.

But the Longhorns could not capitalize on the early momentum, seeing the Sooners control the game all throughout the second half. That resulted in a bad collapse of a loss for Sark and the Longhorns, which came by the final score of 55-48.

It’s hard to believe the Texas defense showed out the way it did against a freshman quarterback getting the most playing time in his career to date in the second half. Sark, first-year co-defensive coordinator/linebackers coach Pete Kwiatkowski, and the Longhorns couldn’t get going really on either side of the ball down the stretch either.

Steve Sarkisian giving Texas football fans a similar feeling compared to Tom Herman

Following the losses to Oklahoma this weekend, and the humbling road loss to head coach Sam Pittman and the Arkansas Razorbacks from back on Sep. 11, Texas is in a familiar spot. This Texas team still has a chance to compete for a spot in the Big 12 Championship Game and one of the better non-New Years Six Bowl games, but that’s not where this football program should be.

Texas parted ways with now-former head coach Tom Herman during the offseason precisely to get away from that feeling. In the last three seasons, Texas definitely wasn’t bad under Herman. But these bad losses with the inability to separate from an opponent of almost any caliber was a feeling that Longhorns fans are ready to put in the rearview mirror.

Texas had a lead against the Sooners at one point late in the game last season, and couldn’t capitalize in the end. This was a similar feeling in a sense for the Longhorns against the Sooners this time around.

While I personally still have faith that Sark can take this program to greater heights than Herman did, these two losses to Arkansas and Oklahoma don’t leave a good taste in my mouth. Texas will be alright on the recruiting trail, even after these two bad losses, but that’s not the main takeaway here.

Texas needs to be closing out these types of games that they can clearly win. There are still too many inconsistencies, especially on the defensive side of the ball. There’s really no reason why Texas shouldn’t be able to close this game out.

Pretty much everything had to go wrong in the second half for Sark and the Longhorns to fall short in this game. And that’s exactly what happened at the Cotton Bowl in Dallas on Saturday afternoon.

It will take some time to really digest this loss for the Longhorns, but a lot of fans on the Forty Acres are left with a similar feeling following this Red River defeat that they had after Arkansas. Herman was able to at least get Texas competitive with Oklahoma, and lose in the end. That’s not good enough for Texas, clearly.

Texas now carries a record of 4-2 (2-1 Big 12) following this loss to the Sooners in Red River in Dallas on Oct. 9. Next up for Sark and the Longhorns is a battle with the other Oklahoma school out of the Big 12, against the No. 12 ranked Oklahoma State Cowboys at home at DKR on Oct. 16.