Despite Being Ranked No. 1, Texas Still Has Much To Improve On

The Texas Longhorns dominated UTSA on Saturday, but there is still plenty of room for them to improve.

The Texas Longhorns pray ahead of their game against the UTSA Roadrunners at Darrell K RoyalÐTexas Memorial Stadium, Saturday, Sept. 14, 2024. Texas won the game 56-7. / Sara Diggins/American-Statesman / USA TODAY NETWORK via Imagn Images

Texas football has it all, it's ranked No. 1 in the AP Poll and has dominated all of its games so far this season, sitting comfortably at 3-0. But there is one thing Texas needs to work on limiting, penalties.

Despite dominating every aspect of the game in a 56-7 win over UTSA, Texas had seven penalties for 59 yards, opposed to UTSA's three for 32 yards. Several of those penalties came at inopportune times for the Longhorns, limiting the potential of some drives.

Not only were several drives backed up before they even started due to false start penalties, but good field position was sacrificed due to some block-in-the-back and personal foul penalties.

The early false start penalties could be attributed to the loud environment that was Darrell K Royal-Texas Memorial Stadium on Saturday night, as Texas fans packed the stadium and stayed the entire time.

"That was a great environment — first night game at DKR — and it lived up to the billing from an energy standpoint," Texas head coach Steve Sarkisian said. "I appreciate their support. Everybody stayed until the end. You know, I get it; games can kind of get out of hand, and it's easy to leave, but for them to stick around and support our guys means a ton."

Due to the dominance Texas showed over UTSA, it was able to get away with the penalties unscathed.

But down the line in SEC play, it will need to clean up the game to have a chance to stay dominant.

In the second quarter, Texas forced a UTSA punt and it looked like Silas Bolden was knocked down by a UTSA player in coverage, which would have been 15-yards in Texas' favor. The referees made the call, stating that the UTSA player was pushed into Bolden, changing the call into a block-in-the-back.

The penalty pushed Texas back from its own 21 yard-line to the four and the Longhorns were unable to gain the field position back and went three-and-out.

"I respect the game of football and I respect Coach Traylor," Sarkisian said. "You want to get first downs and you try not to do things that are unsportsmanlike and out of sportsmanship. In the end, we kind of stubbed our own toe there with the false start and then we got a penalty after the whistle ... But I appreciate the way our guys played, I think they played really hard-nosed, tough, physical football."

Texas Longhorns receiver Silas Bolden (11) runs the ball during the game against UTSA at Darrell K Royal-Texas Memorial Stadium in Austin Saturday, Sept. 14, 2024. / Aaron E. Martinez/American-Statesman / USA TODAY NETWORK via Imagn Images

Despite the penalties, Texas showed why it deserves to be ranked first in the AP poll. It played all the way to the end of the game, with junior linebacker Ethan Burke snagging a pick-six with less than two minutes left in the fourth quarter.

"What a fantastic play to make, everything was great until the bellyflop into the end zone so we're gonna critique the dive by Burke there," Sarkisian said. "But I think that's the beauty of our team, the excitement on that play, it looked like half our team was trying to run into the end zone to celebrate with him. In a score that's 56-7, you don't see a lot of teams that are together like that."

Texas' togetherness has gotten it to the top spot in college football, and to stay at the top, it will need to continue playing at the same level and working together to minimize penalties, especially as the opponents improve throughout the season.