Sports / Austin, Texas — The Texas vs Ole Miss final score — No. 19 Texas 34, No. 7 Ole Miss 27, on Saturday night at Darrell K Royal–Texas Memorial Stadium — was the win the Longhorns' season had been begging for. Arch Manning threw for one touchdown and ran for two more, Texas built a 24-3 lead, blew almost all of it, and then held on through a frantic final quarter to beat a top-10 team and stop a two-game slide that had put head coach Steve Sarkisian's future at the center of the national conversation.
The Texas vs Ole Miss final score moves Texas to 5-2 overall and gives the Longhorns their third win over a ranked opponent this season, after earlier victories over then-No. 1 Ohio State and then-No. 14 Tennessee. Manning finished 18 of 30 for 212 yards with one touchdown and two interceptions, and added two rushing touchdowns despite being held to two net rushing yards on eight carries behind a reshuffled line. Running back Raleek Brown carried the ground game with 157 yards on 23 carries. For Ole Miss (5-2), Trinidad Chambliss threw for 250 yards and two touchdowns but was intercepted three times — the turnovers that, more than anything else, decided a game the Rebels nearly stole.
A 24-3 start that answered a week of noise
Texas played its best half of the season when it needed it most. Manning opened the scoring with a two-yard rushing touchdown — his first rushing score of the season — to break a 3-3 tie in the first quarter, then hit Ryan Wingo in stride for a 50-yard touchdown that made it 17-3. A Michael Terry III rushing touchdown stretched the lead to 24-3 with just over nine minutes left in the second quarter. By halftime Manning had thrown for 164 yards on 12-of-18 passing with nearly 200 total yards, while the Texas defense had held Chambliss — a Heisman Trophy candidate — to 53 passing yards and an interception. The Longhorns led 10-3 after one quarter and 24-3 at the break, and for 30 minutes the team that started the season at No. 1 looked like it again.
The collapse that nearly repeated itself
Then came the second half Texas fans have seen before. The Longhorns were shut out in the third quarter while Ole Miss scored twice — Chambliss found Horatio Fields for a six-yard touchdown, the Rebels' first offensive score of the night — and early in the fourth, after a pass-interference call on Texas safety Jelani McDonald, Chambliss hit Fields again from 27 yards to tie the game 24-24. A 24-3 lead had evaporated, exactly the pattern of the losses to Oklahoma and Florida that had defined the previous two weeks. This time Texas answered. Manning walked in for a one-yard rushing touchdown — his third score of the game — with 8:04 left to restore the lead at 31-24, and a field goal pushed it to 34-24. Ole Miss coach Pete Golding, needing two scores inside two minutes, sent Lucas Carneiro out for a first-down field goal at the Texas 22 that cut it to 34-27 with 1:20 to play, but the Rebels never got the ball back with a chance to finish the comeback.
Injuries thinned both rosters
Both teams left the field lighter than they entered it. Ole Miss star running back Kewan Lacy, who had been contained to 36 yards on 16 carries, was carted off during a third-quarter scoring drive with an apparent injury — his third separate injury problem of the season. Texas lost wide receiver Cam Coleman, who came down hard on his right shoulder on a diving attempt early in the third quarter, and offensive lineman Trevor Goosby, who was seen in street clothes with a brace on his left knee and on crutches. The Longhorns were already without edge rusher Colin Simmons and running back Hollywood Smothers, both ruled out before kickoff. Also on Signal Post News: Texas's earlier Manning-led win over Tennessee and Florida's September rout of Ole Miss.
Why this matters
Start with the standings math. Texas entered the night 4-2 and 1-2 in the SEC, having gone from No. 1 in the country three weeks earlier to consecutive losses against unranked Oklahoma and Florida — a fall that made it, per ESPN Research cited in coverage of the skid, just the third team since 1936 to reach No. 1 and then lose back-to-back games to unranked opponents. A third straight loss, at home, to a top-10 team, would have effectively ended the Longhorns' College Football Playoff argument in October and turned the Sarkisian speculation — national writers openly debating whether Manning should be benched and whether backup KJ Lacey should take over — into something much louder. Instead, Texas now owns wins over Ohio State, Tennessee and Ole Miss, a top-10 win that travels well with any playoff committee, and a quarterback who produced his most decisive game of the season in the highest-pressure week of his career. For Ole Miss, the loss is survivable but costly: the Rebels fall to 5-2, their Heisman candidate threw three interceptions in the biggest road test of the year, and their margin for error in a crowded SEC race is now thin. The deeper story is the shape of the win — Texas did not exorcise its second-half problem; it survived it. The Longhorns were outscored 24-10 after halftime and 14-0 in the third quarter. That is a warning that travels with them, even on a night worth celebrating.
What happens next
Texas's season no longer hangs on a single Saturday, but the schedule offers no soft landing, and the injury list — Coleman, Goosby, Simmons, Smothers, with Lacy's status a concern on the Ole Miss side — will shape the next month as much as the standings will. The immediate questions are medical: whether Coleman and Goosby can return quickly, and whether Manning, who took heavy criticism and heavier hits through the skid, can build on a three-touchdown night rather than relapse into the turnover pattern that still showed up twice on Saturday. Ole Miss returns home needing Chambliss to protect the ball; three interceptions against the best defense it has faced will follow the Rebels into every remaining big game. The playoff picture, though, is the real headline: a conference that looked ready to bury Texas in October now has to reckon with a 5-2 team holding three ranked wins and the loudest home win of the weekend.
Sources
Sportradar official match record (final score, quarter splits, player statistics, Winner: Texas 34-27): https://sportradar.com/?q=5363896064791812164 · Longhorns Wire / USA Today live coverage (final table 34-27; Carneiro field goal at 1:20 of the fourth quarter): https://longhornswire.usatoday.com/story/sports/college/longhorns/football/2026/10/24/live-updates-texas-vs-ole-miss-time-tv-channel-score-analysis--live/92420870007/ · USA Today national live blog (Manning's second rushing touchdown at 8:04 of the fourth quarter; Fields tying touchdown; Coleman injury): https://www.usatoday.com/story/sports/ncaaf/sec/2026/10/24/texas-ole-miss-football-live-updates-score--live/92402930007/ · ClutchPoints (Wingo 50-yard touchdown; Manning first-half line): https://clutchpoints.com/ncaa-football/texas-football-news-arch-manning-beautiful-throw-ole-miss-ryan-wingo · Saturday Down South (Lacy carted off; Coleman and Goosby injuries): https://www.saturdaydownsouth.com/news/college-football/ole-miss-rb-kewan-lacy-carted-off-after-2nd-half-injury-in-texas-game/ and https://www.saturdaydownsouth.com/news/college-football/texas-stars-cam-coleman-trevor-goosby-exit-ole-miss-game-with-injuries/