Texas football wins ugly vs. Mississippi State but 5-0 is 5-0 | Golden
Steve Sarkisian won't have to worry about motivating his team entering the bye week.
Mississippi State isn't in the same class as Texas football , but the team that isn't likely to have a winning record this season gave the home team a real tussle Saturday.
RELATED: Our staff takeaways from Texas' win over Mississippi State
If winning ugly was an art form, the Texas offense painted a Picasso on Saturday.
On a day when one SEC title contender went down, the Horns warded off the bye-week-upset monster and can now look ahead to some name-brand competition in a couple of weeks.
That is, if they weren't looking ahead already.
The Horns turned it over twice and seemed out of sorts on offense for most of the afternoon, but were plenty good enough to turn back 38-point underdog Mississippi State 35-13 in their first league game as a member of the SEC.
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Sarkisian played the long game and sat starting quarterback Quinn Ewers. I believe he would have played had the Horns been facing Oklahoma or Georgia instead of Mississippi State, which was starting a true freshman at quarterback and coming off a 17-point loss to Florida.
The Horns took the field with the knowledge that No. 5 Ole Miss took one on the chin at home to the scrappy Kentucky Wildcats, who celebrated after the Rebels missed a chip-shot field goal that likely would have forced overtime.
Manning completed 15-of-19 passes for 202 yards in the first half, and that number would have been closer to 275 had Johntay Cook II not dropped a perfectly thrown deep ball midway through the second quarter. Manning finished 26 of 31 for 324 yards and two touchdowns and dove over the goal line to finish what would have been a 27-yard touchdown run had the refs not missed on the replay review. He later plunged in on a sneak to put the Horns up two touchdowns.
The bye week couldn't be coming at a better time. The Horns are banged up. Defensive back Derek Williams joined Ewers on the inactive list while Ryan Wingo and Michael Taaffe limped off near the end of the first half. Taaffe returned for the second half.
As we look ahead to a weekend without Texas football, fans should be obviously thankful, not only for a team that's 5-0 for the second straight season but also for a head coach who's an expert at navigating bye weeks when it come to getting his team ready for the money games coming up.
Oklahoma hasn't been a world-beater, but the Sooners will surely show up Oct. 12 in Dallas with bad intentions. Then the Horns get Georgia in Austin a week later.
The SEC is a new animal and the Horns passed their first test, albeit without flying colors.
