Texas Took Ohio State in Austin: Week 3 Goes to Oxford
Texas Took Ohio State in Austin: Week 3 Goes to Oxford
Texas beat Ohio State 24-23 in Austin on Saturday night. That is the posted result. It is not a preview. No. 4 Texas trailed 23-3 after three quarters. Hollywood Smothers scored from 1 yard with 25 seconds left. Gianni Spetic kicked the extra point. The Longhorns are 2-0. The Buckeyes are 1-1. Week 3 now points at Oxford.
Broadway Sports Network is not replaying last week's preview of this game. That preview had a kickoff and a pair of clocks. This piece has a final. Arch Manning threw a touchdown to Ryan Wingo to start the fourth-quarter run. Smothers scored again with 7:14 left. Ohio State still had a chance to answer. Texas finished the 21-0 close. The building held 105,044.
College GameDay was in Austin on Saturday morning. It will not be in Austin next Saturday. ESPN is taking the show to Oxford for LSU at Ole Miss. That is the next national date on this sport's week. Texas stays home against UTSA. The ranked Saturday that just ended is no longer the object. The Grove is.
What Actually Happened in the Fourth Quarter
Ohio State led 10-0 after the first quarter and 20-3 at halftime. A field goal in the third made it 23-3. Associated Press reporting after the game said No. 1 teams had been 197-0 since 2004 when they held a 20-point lead at any point in the fourth quarter. Texas is now the exception on that list.
Manning finished with 196 passing yards. The Longhorns' own recap called it the program's first win against an AP No. 1 since beating then-top-ranked SMU on Nov. 4, 1950. It also matched Texas' second-largest fourth-quarter comeback. The last time the club did that was Nov. 3, 2007, at Oklahoma State.
Do not turn those history notes into a speech. They are posted comparisons. The live fact is simpler. Texas scored 21 in the fourth. Ohio State scored 0. The last snap that counted was a 1-yard run and a kick.
ESPN's College GameDay broadcast from campus for the 29th time at a Texas game. That show now packs up. The next set is already assigned.
The Other Saturday Results That Still Sit on the Board
Michigan beat Oklahoma 17-10 at Michigan Stadium. Bryce Underwood ran 38 yards for the first score. Trey Butkowski kicked a 40-yard field goal for a 10-0 lead. John Mateer hit Mackenzie Alleyne from 22 yards in the third. Tate Sandell tied it at 10-10 with a 34-yard field goal in the fourth. Jordan Marshall scored from 1 yard at 7:53 of the fourth. That is the posted finish. Michigan is 2-0. Oklahoma is 1-1.
Oklahoma State beat Oregon 39-31 in Stillwater. Zane Mestemaker threw for 317 yards and two touchdowns. He ran for 109 yards and another score. The Cowboys ended a 21-game losing streak against FBS opponents. Fans took down a goal post and put it in Theta Pond. Oregon is 1-1. Oklahoma State is 1-1. Last season this pairing was 69-3 the other way. This season it is 39-31 the other way.
Miami beat Florida A&M 77-7 on Thursday, Sept. 10. The Hurricanes led 21-0 after the first quarter and 49-0 at the half. They added 28 in the third and none in the fourth. FAMU scored in the fourth. Miami is 2-0. That score is already a week old. It still matters because Miami plays Friday night this week.
Those four posted results are the weekend the sport just finished. They are not interchangeable. Texas-Ohio State is the ranked night that flipped. Michigan-Oklahoma is the noon game that stayed tight. Oklahoma State-Oregon is the Stillwater shock. Miami-FAMU is the Thursday blowout that now feeds a Friday trip to Winston-Salem.
Week 3 Starts Friday in Winston-Salem
Miami visits Wake Forest on Friday, Sept. 18, at 7:30 p.m. ET on ESPN. The site is Allegacy Federal Credit Union Stadium. The ACC posted that window in May. It is still the window. This desk will not invent a Friday score. The game has not been played.
Miami's Thursday 77-7 is the last posted result for that club. Wake Forest's last result is not this column's job to invent. The posted fact that does not need inventing is the clock. Friday night. ESPN. Winston-Salem. That is the first FBS game of Week 3 that this piece will mark.
Broadway Sports Network is not treating Friday as a warm-up for Saturday. Friday is a conference game with a national window. Saturday is a different building with a different show.
Oxford Is the Saturday Object
LSU visits Ole Miss on Saturday, Sept. 19, at 6:30 p.m. CT. That is 7:30 p.m. ET. ABC has the game. ESPN's College GameDay is in Oxford for the third time. Rece Davis hosts. Kirk Herbstreit is a posted analyst. Desmond Howard is on the same announcement. Pat McAfee is on it. Nick Saban is on it. The show starts at 8 a.m. CT on The Grove Stage.
Lane Kiffin is walking back into Vaught-Hemingway Stadium in purple and gold. He left Oxford after the 2025 regular season and took the LSU job. Pete Golding kept the Rebels through a College Football Playoff run that reached a semifinal. That is the coaching fact the week is built on. It is not a speech. It is why the show is in Oxford and not still in Austin.
Ole Miss is 2-0. The Rebels beat Louisville 41-38 on a 48-yard field goal by Lucas Carneiro as time expired in Nashville. They beat Charlotte 41-9 in the home opener on Saturday. Kewan Lacy scored twice. Trinidad Chambliss threw for 225 yards and two touchdowns. Attendance was 68,134.
LSU is 2-0. The Tigers beat Clemson 51-10 in Kiffin's debut after a weather delay. They beat Louisiana Tech 45-14 on Saturday night in Baton Rouge. Next Saturday is the SEC opener for both clubs. The Magnolia Bowl is the posted name. The clock is 6:30 p.m. CT.
Texas Does Not Follow the Show
Texas hosts UTSA on Saturday, Sept. 19, at 7 p.m. CT at Darrell K Royal-Texas Memorial Stadium. SEC Network+ has the stream. There is no linear TV window on the school's own listing. The game is sold out. That is a home Saturday after a ranked home Saturday. It is not GameDay.
The Longhorns do not travel with the set. They stay in the building where they just beat Ohio State. Week 3 for Texas is a night kick against a conference-USA visitor. Week 3 for the sport's national show is Oxford.
Hold those two Saturdays apart. A reader who wants Texas again will find them at 7 p.m. CT on a stream. A reader who wants the next ranked night will find LSU and Ole Miss on ABC. Both are posted. Only one of them has a sunrise show on the Grove.
How Saturday in Austin Changes the Week in Front
A 23-3 lead after three quarters is supposed to end a ranked night. It did not. Texas scored on a pass to Wingo. Texas scored on a Smothers run with 7:14 left. Ohio State still had a field-goal chance that did not finish the night. Smothers scored again with 25 seconds left. Spetic's kick made it 24-23. That sequence is the whole fourth quarter that matters.
GameDay's 29th Texas visit is now a closed date. The 105,044 in the building watched a No. 1 club fail to close. The next national Saturday does not owe Texas another visit. It owes Oxford a first look at Kiffin in the other sideline's sweater. That sentence is coaching geography. It is not poetry.
Michigan's 17-10 sits next to Austin as the other ranked Saturday result. Oklahoma tied it at 10-10 in the fourth and lost on a 1-yard run. Ann Arbor did not flip a No. 1. It flipped a tight noon game. Stillwater flipped Oregon. Miami's Thursday already flipped a scoring board that does not need another adjective.
What This Desk Will Not Do With Saturday
This desk will not invent a score for Oxford. This desk will not invent a score for Winston-Salem. This desk will not invent a score for Texas-UTSA. The only college finals in this file are the ones already posted. Texas 24-23. Michigan 17-10. Oklahoma State 39-31. Miami 77-7. Ole Miss 41-38 and 41-9. LSU 51-10 and 45-14.
Last week's BSN file treated Saturday as a test that had not been taken. This week's file treats Saturday as a test that Texas passed and Ohio State failed. The next test is already on the board. It is in a different state. It has a different coach walking into a stadium he used to work.
Sports Unfiltered is the name on this site for a reason. The unfiltered version of Week 2 is that the No. 1 team in the country lost a 20-point fourth-quarter lead in Austin. The unfiltered version of Week 3 is that the show now moves to the Grove because Kiffin is coming back.
If you want a tidy national narrative, you will not get one here. You will get the posted final in Austin and the posted clocks for Friday and Saturday. Texas took Ohio State. Week 3 goes to Oxford. That is the week.
