Texas football: Big plays from the Longhorns defense lead UT past Mississippi State
For the Texas football team, Halloween featured more treats than tricks.
Led by its defense, UT never trailed during Saturday night’s 31-3 win over Mississippi State at Royal-Memorial Stadium. The 11th-ranked Longhorns got three touchdown passes from quarterback Arch Manning, but it was a defense that contributed a score by defensive lineman Maraad Watson and seven sacks that shined the brightest in the 28-point triumph.
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With the victory, Texas improved its record to 6-2 on the season. The Longhorns are 3-2 in SEC play.
Meanwhile, Mississippi State slumped to 4-4 with a 2-4 mark in conference contests. After a 4-0 start to its season, Mississippi State has lost four straight games.
Texas scores on both offense and defense before halftime
After exiting last week’s 34-27 win over Ole Miss with an injury, UT receiver Cam Coleman quickly made up for lost time. After Texas received the opening kickoff, the football was thrown in Coleman’s direction on the evening’s third and fourth offensive snaps. Coleman turned that third play into a 47-yard gain after he hauled in a hitch in traffic and then scored on a 14-yard touchdown catch.
That was the seventh touchdown catch of the season for Coleman, who celebrated the score with the famed dance from Michael Jackson’s “Thriller” music video. Coleman, though, wouldn’t have a chance to dance again on Halloween as he would leave Saturday’s game with another injury.
Following Coleman’s touchdown, the Texas offense stalled over its next two possessions. Mississippi State failed to take advantage as its first three drives ended with three punts and a missed 38-yard field goal.
More: Watch Texas DL Maraad Watson scoop-and-score against Mississippi State
With 5:41 left in the second quarter, Texas closed out a 13-play drive with a 45-yard field goal. Texas quarterback Arch Manning took a beating on that possession as he lost his helmet on a run that was negated by a holding penalty, and then had to have his hand taped up after he started bleeding following another hit.
The Longhorns later added its second defensive touchdown of the season when Watson returned a fumble for a 61-yard score on a play that injured Mississippi State quarterback AJ Swann. Texas missed out on a touchdown bingo in the first half when Ryan Niblett’s 76-yard score off a punt return was called back because of a block in the back penalty.
Texas stumbles again in the third quarter but recovers
Texas entered Saturday’s halftime intermission with a 17-0 lead. That wasn’t a big surprise. After all, the Longhorns had now led at the break in all five of their conference contests this season.
Texas, however, had notably struggled in the third quarter of its SEC games. Those issues – which included a 31-3 deficit on the third-quarter deficit – had led to two conference losses, and two wins that weren’t decided until the game’s final play.
More:See photos from the Longhorns’ SEC win over Mississippi State
At first glance, it did not appear like Texas had solved its third-quarter problems during its practices this week. Manning fumbled away the football on UT’s first possession of the second half, and that turnover set up a field goal for a Mississippi State team that had replaced the injured Swann with Billy Puckett (the Bulldogs were already without dynamic starting quarterback Kamario Taylor).
But after Mississippi State made it a two-score game, Texas responded with a seven-play touchdown drive. After Manning moved the Longhorns down the field with 37- and 22-yard passes to Emmett Mosley V and Raleek Brown, the latter Longhorn hauled in a four-yard touchdown pass.
Brown’s score gave UT both a 24-3 lead and its first third-quarter touchdown since the team’s season opener against Texas State. Mississippi State was unable to cut into that deficit in the final frame, and Mosley added an exclamation mark on a 42-yard touchdown catch with 7:56 left.
Offensively, the Longhorns had just 280 yards and four scoring drives. The Texas defense held Mississippi State to 188 yards as linebacker Rasheem Biles (threee sacks, two forced fumbles) led a defense that was didn’t have NCAA sacks leader Colin Simmons for the second straight game.
Up next: Texas will soon restart its rivalry with Missouri
After three straight games at Royal-Memorial Stadium, Texas will return to the road next week when it heads to Missouri. This game will serve as a reunion for Missouri and Texas, which have played just once since the Tigers left the Big 12 following the 2011 season.
Ranked No. 23 in the AP poll, Missouri entered this weekend with a 5-2 record and a 2-2 mark in conference play. On Saturday night, the Tigers were holding onto a fourth-quarter lead over Arkansas as time expired in the Texas game.
This article originally published at Texas football: Big plays from the Longhorns defense lead UT past Mississippi State.
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