Steve Sarkisian went from Texas coach to riverboat gambler and Ohio State folded | Golden
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Steve Sarkisian has been to Las Vegas a time or two, but his gambles Saturday night at Royal-Memorial Stadium trump any roll of the dice or turn of the cards in Sin City.
Thanks to testicular fortitude and late-game ingenuity, Sarkisian turned Austin into Win City by becoming a riverboat gambler against No. 1 Ohio State. And after the final gun sounded, it was his Texas Longhorns celebrating while the Buckeyes left for Bergstrom with empty pockets.
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Actors Woody Harrelson and Matthew McConaughey attend the Texas Longhorns game against Ohio State at Royal-Memorial Stadium in Austin on Saturday, Sept. 12, 2026. (Mikala Compton/Austin American-Statesman)Texas' 24-23 win doesn't begin to tell the full story: Two fourth-down Sarkisian gambles will go down as plays that paved the way for history to be made.
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The first came with 2 minutes, 21 seconds left in the third quarter on a fourth-and-9 play in a 23-3 game. Texas quarterback Arch Manning, under heavy pressure, escaped to his right and threw back across his body to tight end Emaree Winston for the first down. Four plays later, Cam Coleman saved the drive - and the game - when he pounced on Emmett Mosley V's fumble at Ohio State's 12-yard line. Minutes after, Texas cashed in for the first of three fourth-quarter touchdowns.
The second fourth-down gamble was even riskier. Down 13 points with 11:45 left, Manning needed 6 yards on fourth down from his own 32-yard line. By then the Horns had settled into striking distance for a improbable comeback. Sark could have punted now that Texas was back in it. Had Manning not connected with Mosley for the first down, this conversation would be much different.
it lives at 11am!Sark wasn't interested in playing the percentages once things got going for his offense.
"Winners win, baby. You have to go for it," he said as UT athletic director Chris Del Conte smiled from the back of the interview room. "They didn't hire me to keep it close. They hired me to win."
Sark pushed his chips to the middle of the table and put his faith in the guys behind him. As a result, the Horns are the ones with full pockets at 2-0 entering their final non-conference matchup at home Saturday against UTSA.
Texas Longhorns quarterback Arch Manning (16) celebrates with Texas Longhorns fan after winning against the Ohio State Buckeyes 24-23 at Royal-Memorial Stadium in Austin, Sept. 12, 2026. (Ricardo B. Brazziell/Austin American-Statesman)Texas didn't play its best game, but who cares when you can outscore the No. 1 team in the country 21-0 in the fourth quarter and complete the biggest comeback win of the Sarkisian era. Twenty-one years after Vince Young and Limas Sweed connected on a late touchdown to take down the Buckeyes in Columbus, Hollywood Smothers' dive over the goal line with 25 seconds left snapped Texas' two-game losing streak to Ohio State and took a cement truck's worth of pressure off the Horns, who avoided a second straight 1-1 start to the season.
What this win means for the Texas Longhorns
Now they are in the No. 1 spot, per the newly released AP poll, after knocking off the team on the top perch. If the Horns do great things this season and make some noise in the College Football Playoff, they'll look back on Sept. 12, 2026 and the night they refused to buckle against a team that had all the answers for most of the evening.
Texas Longhorns running back Hollywood Smothers (2) leaps over tackle attempts in the fourth quarter of Texas' 24-23 win over Ohio State at Royal-Memorial Stadium in Austin, Sept. 12, 2026. (Sara Diggins/Austin American-Statesman)MORE HORNS:Don't forget Spectic's game-winning extra point
They just joined the pantheon of Texas comeback kings, from the 2004 team that overcame a 35-7 second-quarter deficit to smash Oklahoma State 56-35, to the signature moment in program history: the Young-led 15-0 fourth-quarter run that powered the 41-38 win over USC in the 2005 BCS national title game.
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With VY, Colt McCoy and their coach Mack Brown watching from the sideline, Manning orchestrated a comeback for the ages, and Sark showed the kind of faith in his quarterback and defense that will resonate for the rest of this season and beyond.
"I didn't want to come in here after a loss at home to Ohio State again and have y'all telling me we're not good," Manning said. "I could not let that happen."
Texas figured it out at halftime
So how did they regroup at the half when they were down 20-3? Did Sark have a séance to channel Royal and Rockne? Whatever he said changed the whole narrative.
When asked about the mood in the locker room, he pointed to a wall at the back of the interview room.
"I don't know if you guys notice it when you walk in," Sarkisian said. "It says 'Texas Fight' and we challenged our team at halftime to compete and to get tighter and to play closer together and to lean into one another. When real adversity strikes, that's what you need to do. And you know we talk a lot about this here as a team. Life is 10% what happens to you and 90% how you react to it."
And this was 100% a team win.
Texas Longhorns quarterback Arch Manning (16) yells as he walks to the locker room after Texas' 24-23 win over Ohio State at Royal-Memorial Stadium in Austin, Sept. 12, 2026. (Sara Diggins/Austin American-Statesman)Give the guy credit. He went for it when his team was getting blown out. And he kept that same energy when the Horns cracked the door ever so slightly after Ohio State had dominated for most of three quarters. The 105,044 shell-shocked home fans wore the look of a bunch resigned to a third straight loss to the Big Ten juggernaut.
The most stupefying part of the whole thing was just how horribly the Horns had played in the first half. They turned it over twice in their first five plays. Coleman and Wingo, one of the country's most explosive - and expensive - receiving duos, both dropped what should have been early game changers in the first half: Coleman a 50-yard diving catch that ended up an interception, Wingo an easy touchdown grab. Sarkisian flubed another short-yardage play call on a nightmare of an end-around handoff to Wingo on a fourth-and-1 that went nowhere. And that came one play after running back Raleek Brown inexplicably ran out of bounds just short of the line to gain.
Texas showed a real will to win
So, how did the Longhorns figure it out? There's something magical about a gritty, gutty win that started out like they were going to be run out of their own stadium. Texas trailed 23-3 midway through the third quarter and was in the midst of its biggest no-show since that 35-10 blowout loss at Georgia last season. Ohio State was soaring and Texas came in flatter than a IHOP short stack.
From nowhere, a light switched on and the impossible became possible. Only a team that was locked in with the belief that it could defy seemingly insurmountable odds would be able to make this kind of win happen.
Texas Longhorns quarterback Arch Manning (16) celebrates a touchdown late in the fourth quarter against the Ohio State Buckeyes at Royal-Memorial Stadium in Austin, Sept. 12, 2026. Texas Longhorns win over Ohio State Buckeyes 24-23 (Ricardo B. Brazziell/Austin American-Statesman)"This doesn't just come from the start of the season," UT defensive tackle Hero Kanu said. "It's the countless hours we put in with winter workouts, spring workouts, summer ball and fall camp. We're around each other all day, every day. We're not friends. We're family. We're brothers."
Lost in the Longhorns' celebration was Ohio State coach Ryan Day having to answer questions about sitting on a big lead and failing to land the kill shot. "We had them on the ropes and didn't finish," he told reporters. "This one hurts."
The Buckeyes' biggest gaffe came on Connor Hawkins' missed 45-yard field goal that would have put the Buckeyes up by nine points - that's two possessions - with 4:16 left. The Buckeyes left the door open at 23-17 and the Horns took the son of a gun off its hinges.
"When that happened, I knew it was our time," Manning said.
The Horns are a tough out at the house. They just improved to 21-1 in their last 22 home games here and put evidence on film that they're never out of a game until 0:00 is showing on the clock. Sark was right when he said if they have future starts like this with that schedule, the Horns will be in trouble. That said, they displayed real guts against elite competition.
They showed a down Texas isn't an out Texas.
Sign up for the Daily Briefing from the Austin American-Statesman. Start your day with the must-read headlines from Austin's most trusted news source.This article originally published at Steve Sarkisian went from Texas coach to riverboat gambler and Ohio State folded | Golden.