How Arch Manning and the Longhorns went from ‘seeing ghosts’ to huge comeback

AUSTIN – Inside the head of many an unfortunate quarterback, there’s an affliction that can be hard to shake, especially once things start going wrong.

Steve Sarkisian has watched it happen all too often. A dropped pass leads to a bad decision. An unlucky bounce leads to unmistakable boos from the upper deck. And then the hallucinations begin.

“Seeing ghosts,” the Texas football coach calls it.

Is that what Arch Manning saw Saturday night at Royal-Memorial Stadium when he peered out at the No. 1 Ohio State defense on fourth-and-6, trying to rally his fourth-ranked Longhorns from 20 points down in front of 105,044 gawking onlookers? 

Did he remember all of the nightmares he said he had after losing to the Buckeyes last year? Was he reading the free safety, or the next deathly apparition that would haunt him from under his bed?

Whatever he thought he was seeing, the most scrutinized college quarterback of his generation was convinced of one thing on his way to what turned into a rousing 24-23 Longhorns victory: 

This time, the ghosts weren’t going to win.

“I could not let that happen,” Manning said.

He didn’t.

On that crucial fourth down from deep in his own territory, Manning made a perfect read and a perfect throw. During the next 12 minutes, he kept doing the same thing, over and over again.

And when the deed was done, with the UT quarterback and his teammates jumping up and down across the turf while being showered with the approving roars of a crowd that booed them earlier on a sweltering evening, it remained unclear if the ghosts were gone for good.

But for the moment, at least, nobody but the Buckeyes could see them.

“I thought I was going to lose it there a couple of times,” Sarkisian admitted later. “I tried to hold it together.”

Had he not been able to do that, somehow, there’s no telling how ugly things could have gotten. During his first five seasons in Austin, Sarkisian led the Longhorns to two College Football Playoff semifinals, but he also developed a disturbing knack for high-profile duds.

In five previous matchups with Ohio State and Georgia, Sarkisian was 0-5. When the Longhorns fell behind 23-3 in the third quarter Saturday, plagued by another round of perplexing play calls, he was about to make it 0-6.

To be sure, in the 12-team playoff era, no roster as expensive as UT’s can be eliminated in early September. Losing Saturday wouldn’t have ended the Longhorns’ championship hopes. But it would have made things desperate, and miserable, and it might even have started making the donors spending an estimated $40 million to secure talent wonder if they needed to find someone else to make sure they got their money’s worth.

Instead, they left Royal-Memorial celebrating what was perhaps the most impressive victory of Sarkisian’s UT tenure. It came after almost everything that could have gone wrong went wrong in the first half, from a fumble on the game’s opening offensive play to an interception that bounced off the chest of a wide-open Longhorns receiver and into the arms of an Ohio State defensive back.

The Buckeyes, who’d twice won nailbiters against UT – in the playoff two years ago and in the regular season last year – looked poise to romp this time. Instead, Manning and the Longhorns started chipping away.

A touchdown pass to Ryan Wingo cut the deficit to 13 on the second play of the fourth quarter. Then, after UT’s Bo Mascoe put the clamps down on Ohio State dynamo Jeremiah Smith, who’d torched the Longhorns for 164 receiving yards, Sarkisian faced a pivotal decision.

Facing fourth-and-6 from his own 32, trailing by 10 points with just under 12 minutes remaining, Sarkisian left his offense on the field. It was a gamble.

A failure to convert essentially would end the game. Everybody knew it.

Through the headset in Manning’s helmet, Sarkisian made the play call, then added a reminder.

“Don’t forget about Emmett (Mosley) on the through route,” he told his quarterback.

And sure enough, that’s where Mosley was, right in the center of the field. Manning completed that pass, then a few more, and a UT offensive line that dealt with its own demons after those previous Ohio State defeats started pushing the Buckeyes around.

Over their last three touchdown drives, the Longhorns ran a staggering 40 plays, covering a combined 236 yards. The last march concluded, appropriately enough, in the trenches at the goal line, where UT had been turned back on a disastrous quarterback sneak attempt in Columbus last year.

“That still haunts me to this day,” Longhorns left tackle Trevor Goosby said. “Being on the goal line again, things had to be different.”

They were. This time, running back Hollywood Smothers leaped over the pile for the game-winning touchdown, completing the Longhorns’ biggest comeback since 2007. 

At midfield, amid the postgame mayhem, UT’s coach had a message for Ohio State coach Ryan Day.

“I hope we see you again,” Sarkisian told him.

It sure beats seeing ghosts.

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This article originally published at How Arch Manning and the Longhorns went from ‘seeing ghosts’ to huge comeback.