4 overreactions after Texas's sluggish win vs. Miss State

Texas will win every game in October by double digits

On the surface, you would think a three-score win for Texas in their first-ever SEC game, while being able to stay undefeated heading into the bye week, would be something to laud. Mississippi State first-year head coach Jeff Lebby was clearly prepared for this game to gash Texas's defense in the first half.

Texas's sloppy win this weekend in the SEC opener highlighted plenty of areas on both sides of the ball (especially for the offense) for Sarkisian and the Longhorns staff to work on during the bye week before Oklahoma in Dallas on Oct. 12.

Sarkisian said it well in the postgame press conference when he mentioned that Texas is "going to have to clean up that stuff" regarding the bad penalties, turnovers, and other miscues on offense.

"There's plenty of things offensively for us to clean up. To have over 500 yards [on 62 plays], there was explosiveness to what we were doing. But we can't continue to play games with two turnovers and false starts and holding penalties and playing behind the chains. That's a recipe for disaster."

- Steve Sarkisian

Texas struggled to pull away on the scoreboard, while trying to avoid shooting itself in the foot with costly offensive penalties that took points away from the Longhorns in the game's first three quarters. In the first three quarters vs. Mississippi State, Texas had six penalties for nearly 50 yards, including three flags that kept the Longhorns from either directly or indirectly putting points on the board on offense.

Given the miscues in this game and some of the injuries the Longhorns have had to work through in the past few weeks at key positions on each side of the ball, the bye week arrives at an advantageous point of the SEC schedule for Texas.

Redshirt junior quarterback Quinn Ewers should return for Texas from the abdominal strain injury he suffered in the Week 3 win over the UTSA Roadrunners coming out of the bye week on Oct. 12 against the Sooners in Dallas.

Texas has a key three-game stretch in mid-to-late October in the SEC that will mark the team's next step in conference play this fall, including Oklahoma (Oct. 12), Georgia at home (Oct. 19), and Vanderbilt (Oct. 26) in Nashville, TN, to cap the month of October.

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