Two losses to unranked teams have now been recorded by historically prominent college football programs within a span of roughly two weeks. Two consecutive losses pulled Texas out of the top spot it had held in the AP poll only weeks prior, with the most recent setback coming against Florida on Saturday.
Holding a 17-3 advantage at home against a Florida side that had dropped its previous two outings, Texas surrendered 24 straight points after a failed fourth-down attempt handed possession back to the visitors. With Arch Manning directing the attack, the team managed just 24 points and dropped a three-point decision on home turf, 27-24.
That narrow defeat at the hands of Oklahoma — a 27-24 margin the previous weekend — had stripped Texas of its hold on the top position in the national rankings, dropping the program to seventh by the time kickoff arrived Saturday. Ballots from AP voters are anticipated to push the former SEC title contenders further down the poll standings.
Only two other programs in the history of AP poll voting, which dates to 1936, had previously dropped consecutive games while holding the top position when their losing run began — a threshold Texas now joins. Those two programs were Pittsburgh in 1939 and Michigan State in 1961.
Manning threw for 173 yards and a touchdown on 14 completions from 20 attempts at quarterback. He avoided throwing any interceptions, an improvement on the prior outing, yet a handful of execution errors and a fumble near the end of the contest determined the final result.
Across four matchups with Power Four programs this season, Texas managed a total of three third-quarter points — a trio of scoreless frames against Ohio State, Oklahoma, and Florida, with only a field goal's worth of production coming against Tennessee.
That stretch yielded a split portrait for Florida — a home victory against Ole Miss, then ranked fourth nationally, offset by consecutive outings in which the defense gave up a combined 83 points. A road victory over a ranked SEC opponent was recorded by the program during Jon Sumrall's tenure at the helm.
Jones, filling in at quarterback, completed 22 of his 35 attempts and threw for a pair of touchdowns. Two top-ten wins at Florida have been recorded under Sumrall within a span of four weeks, compared with three such wins across a four-year window under his predecessor.
Florida's football program had gone more than a decade without consecutive victories over top-ten opponents within the same season, a drought that ended with these results, while the road win over a ranked opponent stood as the program's highest-profile away result since a 2009 trip to face No. 4 LSU.
