Texas is 4-0, but it's still the same team that can't get out of its own way. Saturday night at Neyland Stadium just hid that behind Colin Simmons.
Tennessee's freshman quarterback, Faizon Brandon, played behind an offensive line that couldn't protect him and still nearly stole a road win over the No. 1 team in the country, capping an 80-yard drive with a touchdown pass to Mike Matthews with under two minutes left. He was better than Arch Manning was on Saturday. The box score backs it up: Manning threw for 201 yards, got sacked six times, threw an interception, and somehow drew two flags for illegal forward passes. A senior in his second year as the starter shouldn't be committing that penalty at all, let alone twice, in a conference opener at a hostile stadium he'd never played in.
The only reason any of that didn't sink Texas is that Colin Simmons and the rest of that defensive line turned the game into a track meet in the Tennessee backfield, racking up ten sacks as a team and tying the program record individually. That's a great performance, and it's carrying an offense that should have made this game easy and instead turned it into a stress test full of self-inflicted penalties.
A road win over a ranked opponent in a true SEC environment is a road win over a ranked opponent, full stop, and last season's version of this team, the one where Manning couldn't close out a true road game in regulation, probably loses this exact game. That's real. It doesn't mean Texas looks like the best team in the country, though. Grinding out a three-point escape while getting outplayed at the most important position on the field is survival.
Raleek Brown is the actual reason Texas had a lead to defend in that final stretch, his second touchdown run putting Texas up with under six minutes to go. The run game and the pass rush won this game. The passing offense and the discipline almost lost it. If Texas wants to keep the top ranking it's carrying into next week, that ratio has to flip. This defensive line can't manufacture ten sacks against every team left on this schedule, and eventually a quarterback with better protection than Tennessee's freshman is going to make Manning's mistakes cost more than three points.
The defense earned everything it got Saturday. The rest of the roster is riding its coattails, and Steve Sarkisian's offense is the reason this game was ever in doubt against a team most people didn't expect to compete this hard. Fix the play-calling or fix the guy throwing the ball. Right now Texas is the team with the best defensive line in the country, papering over everyone else.
