Texas has been in this exact situation before. The Longhorns opened 2025 as the AP preseason No. 1 team for the first time in the team’s history, built around quarterback Arch Manning’s potential and then finished 9-3 without a visit to the College Football Playoff.
Heading into 2026, the hype returns, this time with a full season of evidence. Whether Texas can finally deliver depends on two things that failed last year: the offensive line and a quarterback who proved himself towards the backstretch of the 2025 season.
Can Texas live up to the hype?
Manning’s case for a real breakout season is built on how his 2025 ended rather than how it started. After a rocky start that included a 44% completion of his passes against UTEP, Manning finished the year by winning seven of his final eight games, throwing for 2,012 yards and 15 touchdowns with two interceptions over those eight games while also running for 239 yards and five touchdowns.
Texas also upgraded the pieces around him, adding receiver Cam Coleman and running backs Raleek Brown and Hollywood Smothers through the portal.
The bigger question, though, is the offensive line that caused most of the Longhorns’ problems last season. The unit entered 2025 with only one returning starter and struggled to establish a run game, averaging just 3.3 yards per carry in SEC play. That instability left Manning under constant pressure and forced Texas into a pass-heavy scheme that could not make up for the running game’s absence.
Entering 2026, three starters return, including projected first-round pick left tackle Trevor Goosby, and Texas added transfer starters, Melvin Siani and Laurence Seymore.
Texas faces the three teams that beat them in 2025, Florida, Georgia and Ohio State, again this season, with road trips to Oklahoma and LSU. New defensive coordinator Will Muschamp also has a secondary that lost three starters.
Texas has the right quarterback, the added skill talent and an offensive line that on paper seems to have improved. But the same optimism existed a year ago, and Texas faces a schedule that offers almost no margin to work through early mistakes.
Texas right now seems to have the pieces to match the potential most of the media thinks it has, but 2026 still could always end the same way it did in 2025.
