The Texas running game is still lacking explosiveness

When the Texas Longhorns began preparing for the January portal window Texas Longhorns head coach Steve Sarkisian needed some “cap space” to upgrade a running backs room that failed to produce explosive plays last season,

The team’s leading rusher in 2025 and 2026, Quintrevion Wisner, left for Florida State. The team’s high-profile 2023 signee, CJ Baxter, left for Kentucky after three injury-plagued season. Christian Clark, who flashed in the Citrus Bowl win over Michigan, left for South Carolina.

In two high-profile portal acquisitions, Texas landed Arizona State transfer Raleek Brown and flipped NC State transfer Hollywood Smothers from Alabama, players with a proven track record of creating big plays in the running game.

And yet, since Smothers ripped off a 45-yard run on the team’s first play from scrimmage this season, Texas has failed to replicate that success — on the team’s last 193 rushing attempts, only two have gone for 20 or more yards, a 21-yard touchdown run by Brown against Texas State and a 20-yard scramble by quarterback Arch Manning against UTSA.

With only three runs of 20-plus yards, the Longhorns are tied for 120th nationally. The single run of 30-plus yards bests just nine teams across the country. Only when reduced to the most limited definition of run-game explosiveness does Texas look better with 25 runs of 10-plus yards, tied for 80th.

Meanwhile, Baxter has resurrected his career in Lexington under first-year head coach Will Stein with 87 carries for 484 yards and four touchdowns, doubling the combined output of Smothers (53-237-4) and Brown (53-218-4).

That’s not to suggest that Sarkisian and new running backs coach Jabbar Juluke got their roster management decisions wrong, although swinging and missing on Florida star Jadan Baugh and Louisville’s Isaac Brown does loom a little bit larger with how much Smothers and Brown have struggled to produce big plays.

Instead, the major storyline is that this Texas offense isn’t finding ways to consistently create opportunities that Smothers and Brown can take advantage of.

In two years at NC State, Smothers notched breakaway runs of 15-plus yards on 59.3 percent of his carries in 2024 and 52.3 percent of his carries in 2025. Now that number is down to 26.6 percent.

For Brown, 45.8 percent of his runs during his breakout season as a Sun Devil went for 15-plus yards. His breakaway rate is even lower this season, dropping to 16.5 percent.

So, to what extent do the issues fall on the running backs and how much blame does the offensive line share?

The offensive line clearly deserves the most blame, ranking 91st nationally in a measure that includes line yards, stuff rate, and power success.

Most notably, Texas averages just 2.89 line yards per carry, which ranks in the 100s. Unsurprisingly, the service academies lead the country with other standout running teams like Miami (3.89) and Georgia (3.44) ranking among the top teams nationally in the metric.

The Pro Football Focus grades correspond with the poor line yards — of the five starting offensive linemen, only senior right tackle Trevor Goosby grades out as a strong run blocker at 70.0. The other four are all in the 50s with junior right guard Brandon Baker the lowest at 54.6.

Moving Baker inside has paid off in pass protection, an area where he grades out as elite, but at 315 pounds, he’s light for an interior lineman and with Texas unexpectedly running Duo as a base play, he’s not as effective playing downhill as he might be running outside zone, the play that freshman running back Derrek Cooper had success with in the second quarter against Oklahoma.

Baker’s athleticism stands in contrast to senior center Connor Robertson, who has slow feet and lacks the strength to make up for it, although he’s savvy enough as a technician to grade out at 59.9, the second-highest run-blocking grade in the starting group.

The biggest disappointment is senior right tackle Melvin Siani, who impressed Sarkisian during preseason camp with the value he was adding as a run blocker. Brought in from Wake Forest because of his high-level pass blocking, Siani has been consistently mediocre in the running game and had his worst overall outing of the season against Oklahoma in committing two penalties and allowing two quarterback hits.

Put sophomore left guard Dylan Sikorski is that same category of struggling against the Sooners and run blocking at a disappointing level outside of the two games against overmatched opponents in Texas State and UTSA. Adding to that disappointment is the fact that Sikorski is primarily known for his physicality and was expected to add more punch in the running game over sixth-year Laurence Seymore, who is much shorter with less mass.

Could offensive line coach Kyle Flood move a backup like Seymore or fifth-year Cole Hutson into the starting lineup in place of Robertson? Sarkisian seemed to rule that out on Thursday in a curt response about the interior of his starting offensive line.

“Those other guys need to practice better if they want to play more,” Sarkisian said.

The Longhorns also need more from the running backs in the open field, ranking in the 120s at 0.56 open-field yards per carry.

Brown’s yards after contact has dropped from 3.28 yards per carry to 2.58 yards per carry and he’s forcing fewer missed tackles. Last year, the 5’9, 195-pounder forced a missed tackle every 4.8 carries. Now it’s every 4.4 carries.

Smothers, who missed the Tennessee game with a lower-leg injury, has also seen his yards after contact drop from 3.84 to 3.21.

If Cooper can continue flashing like he did against Oklahoma with 22 of his 41 yards coming after contact thanks to four missed tackles forced, he could earn more playing time, especially since Brown has had his share of mental mistakes in multiple facets of the game, including poor vision.

Before the injury, Smothers had created some separation as the clear lead back, but the fact that this team doesn’t have a clear star like Bijan Robinson or Jonathon Brooks makes it more difficult to distribute carries and find a rhythm in the running game..

Texas also hasn’t received the same impact from Manning running the ball as it did last season when he gained 519 yards and scored 10 touchdowns — he’s yet to find the end zone on the ground this year and only has 171 rushing yards, almost entirely on scrambles. In 2025, Manning had 21 runs of 10-plus yards and gained 32 first downs with his legs, numbers that are down to seven and five, respectively.

“I would like him to run it a little bit more. I think that’s always the fine line — I feel like when we were at our best last year as an offense, he was utilizing his legs, whether it was on designed runs or scrambles when things broke down, or even in the red area of understanding the run option element that he has at his disposal,” Sarkisian said.

“So, no, I’m with you. I would like to see his legs become more of a factor than they’ve been so far.”

The best news for Texas might be the decrease in defensive quality over the next several weeks.

“I thought we ran the ball pretty good the other night. I know we want more consistency, but there’s not a lot of teams that are ripping off 150 yards against Oklahoma’s defense running the ball. I touched on Georgia — Georgia had five carries that went for five yards or more in the entire game, and so we did some good things,” Sarkisian said.

Earlier in the week, Sarkisian said that he expects the dam to break in terms of producing explosive plays, something that will require better blocking by the offensive line, tight ends, and wide receivers, and more effective running from the backs.

Sarkisian could help by spreading the field more to allow his running backs to work in space more frequently — Texas is averaging 4.1 yards per carry from 11 personnel, a half yard more than in 12 personnel, and produces explosive plays at a rate of 15 percent, almost double the explosive play rate when there’s a second tight end on the field.

Against Oklahoma, that margin widened to 4.9 yards per carry in 11 personnel compared to 3.3 yards per carry in 12 personnel.

“I do think we’ve got good players, I think we’ve got good schemes, and we’ve got to make sure our confidence is right to go out there and do it at a really high level,” Sarkisian said.