Ohio State was up 23-3 with fifteen minutes left in Austin and still lost, 24-23, because Texas trailed by twenty points and decided that wasn’t going to be the final answer. It’s the largest fourth-quarter comeback against an AP No. 1 team ever recorded, according to Sportradar data cited by Fox Sports, and ESPN’s recap reads like a box score that got bored of being predictable. The best team in the country, in a stadium that belonged to someone else, blew a 20-point lead in a single quarter of football.
That’s not really a story about Texas winning. Ohio State had this game won for three quarters — up 10-0 after one, 20-3 at the half, 23-3 heading into the fourth — and it still wasn’t enough, which means the actual story is that the presumptive national title favorite just showed the entire sport exactly how it comes apart.
Arch Manning found the crack nobody else could find, and he did it by finishing as a completely different quarterback than the one who started. He threw an early interception to Jaylen McClain and looked mostly ordinary into the third quarter. Then he went 11 of his final 15 for the day, finishing 23 of 37 for 196 yards, right when Texas actually needed him to be great.
I’ll admit I had this on in the background while doing something else, the way you watch a Week 2 game with no rooting interest, and then the fourth quarter started and nothing else in the room mattered anymore.
Three drives did the damage, one after another. A 15-play, 91-yard march ended with a touchdown throw to Ryan Wingo. Hollywood Smothers punched in a 1-yard score to cap a 13-play, 72-yard possession. Then Smothers did it again on a 12-play, 73-yard drive that ended with the game-winning touchdown with 25 seconds left. Ohio State kicker Connor Hawkins missed a 45-yard field goal with 4:16 remaining that would have iced the whole thing, and instead of putting away a signature win, the Buckeyes handed Texas a runway.
Watch it happen in real time.
https://twitter.com/ESPNCFB/status/2098974334404510008
Manning’s postgame reaction was almost bored by comparison: “I mean, how about that? Getting a win? By one point?” Steve Sarkisian, on the other hand, sounded like a man who knew exactly what he’d just survived. It’s arguably the biggest regular-season win of his six seasons at Texas, and Sarkisian’s own words backed that up: “When you beat the No. 1 team in the fashion that we did…it means a lot.”
Sarkisian blowing off Holly Rowe says everything about how close he knew this actually was. He’d already ducked a halftime hit with Laura Rutledge over “technical difficulties.” Then, postgame, Rowe got as far as “this was one of the most—” before Sarkisian cut her off, said “That’s called Texas fight,” threw up the Hook ‘em Horns, and walked off, per Awful Announcing. She visibly rolled her eyes and walked off herself.
https://twitter.com/ESPNCFB/status/2098977761972932872
Manning, meanwhile, gave Rutledge a completely gracious interview a few minutes later. One of those two coaching staffs walked away from this game feeling like they’d dodged something.
None of this makes Ryan Day’s Ohio State a bad team. They were better for three quarters, they’ll probably still be playing in January, and one road environment meltdown in Week 2 doesn’t undo a roster that talented. But Manning found the one crack that existed, and that changes the conversation for the rest of the season. He’s already fueling the Heisman buzz around Manning versus the polls, and a performance like this puts his Heisman odds riding on his best six games right back in the center of it, whether anyone was ready for that or not.
Ohio State will be fine. Everybody else in the sport just got handed the blueprint for beating them, and it starts with making them play from ahead.
