ARLINGTON – Texas’s season ended in the red zone of the College Football semifinal for the second consecutive year. Last year, it was an incomplete pass by Quinn Ewers in a Sugar Bowl loss to Washington. On Friday night at AT&T Stadium, Ewers was strip sacked by his former roommate at Ohio State, Jack Sawyer, who then rumbled 83 yards the other direction to give the Buckeyes a 28-14 lead and a ticket to the national championship game against Notre Dame. 

“It sucks being on this side of things back-to-back years,” Ewers said after the game. “It’s hard, all the work we put in, being in the Final Four back-to-back years and coming up short, it’s tough.” 

Texas trailed 21-14 with four minutes left in the game when a pass interference call gifted the Longhorns first-and-goal on the Ohio State 1 yard line. The first down run up the middle by Jerrick Gibson was stuffed. The second down toss play by Tre Wisner resulted in an 8-yard loss. Third down was an incomplete pass intended for Ryan Wingo. And fourth down ended in the turnover that ended the Texas season. 

“First and goal on the one and we don’t score, you quite frankly don’t deserve to win that way,” Texas head coach Steve Sarkisian said after the game. 

Red zone failures are nothing new for Texas. The Horns ranked 120th in the FBS last year with a 50 percent touchdown rate inside the red zone. They improved to 52nd in the country in 2024 with a touchdown conversion rate of 64.18 percent. But that number dipped back to 50 percent against Ohio State with one touchdown out of two trips. Ohio State was 2-for-2 in the red zone for 14 points. 

Texas hoped sophomore running back C.J. Baxter would fix the red zone offense. The former five-star recruit is a 6-foot-1, 220-pound bruiser who can gain yards when none are available. Tre Wisner and Jaydon Blue are both listed at a generous 200 pounds. Gibson is 205 as a true freshman. The Horns needed Baxter’s power, but he was lost for the season in August after tearing his ACL and LCL in practice. 

While Ewers receives a lion’s share of the blame when Texas’s offense sputters, the inconsistent run game in the biggest games of the season prevented the Longhorns for advancing past the semifinals. In 13 wins, Texas ran the ball for 2,422 yards and scored 26 rushing touchdowns while averaging 4.82 yards per game. In the three losses, the Horns didn’t run for a single rushing touchdown while averaging 1.4 yards a carry on 84 attempts. 

Texas ran the ball 27 times for 29 yards in the first loss to Georgia while allowing seven sacks. In the rematch, the Longhorns only managed 31 yards on 28 attempts while allowing six sacks. Against Ohio State, they ran the ball 29 times for 58 yards with four sacks allowed. Wisner averaged 2.7 yards a carry with a long of 13. Blue had four carries for 16 yards. 

Even with those struggles, Texas was one yard away from tying the game late in the fourth quarter. Ewers threw for two passes – both to Blue. In fact, Texas’s two leading receivers were Blue and Wisner out of the backfield. The backfield didn’t lack talent or production. It simply lacked its hammer. With no Baxter and Gibson still a freshman, Texas elected to get cute on second down with the toss. If it works, Sarkisian is a genius. It didn’t, so that’ll be a call that is dissected throughout the whole offseason. 

“That’s one of those plays if you block it right, you get in the end zone,” Sarkisian explained. “We didn’t and we lost quite a bit of yardage. At the point, you’re kind of stuck behind the 8 ball because we knew were in four-down territory.” 

One person on the bench who was in uniform that could’ve helped the Longhorns ram the ball into the end zone was Arch Manning. He ran the ball once for eight yards on fourth down in a short-yardage situation. Next year, the Horns should be better in those situations with a presumed backfield of Manning and Baxter in those situations. 

Losing is always disappointing. Maybe especially so one game away from the national championship game. But one thing is for sure – Texas is back. The Longhorns were 13-12 in Sarkisian’s first two seasons on the Forty Acres. They were 25-4 over the last two. For leaders like Ewers and Jahdae Barron who likely played their final games in burnt orange, the defeat won’t sour the climb back to relevance. The future is bright for the first time in a long time. 

“(The future at Texas) is going to be amazing for these guys and the reason they’re going to be amazing is because Coach Sark and what he’s about,” Barron said. “It’s nothing about football. It’s culture and who you are as a person.”