Razorbacks not just losing games but losing identity as Texas showed

Longhorns exposed every week spot of a routine teams have discovered works every time this season

Arkansas Razorbacks interim coach Bobby Petrino on the sidelines against the Auburn Tigers at Razorback Stadium in Fayetteville, Ark. | Ted McClennning-allHOGS Images

FAYETTEVILLE, Ark. — There are bad losses. There are predictable losses. And then there are the kinds of losses that tell the rest of the country exactly where a program stands.

Arkansas’ 52–37 defeat to No. 17 Texas on Saturday didn’t just confirm the gap between the two rivals.

It confirmed something far more troubling for the Razorbacks — this is a program in full retreat.

Nationally, Arkansas barely registers in the SEC conversation anymore. And the truth is, nothing that happened in Austin, Texas, suggested they should.

This wasn’t a surprise upset that slipped away.

This was a team doing what it has done all season — hang around for a half, then watch the roof cave in the moment the third quarter begins.

The Razorbacks trailed just 21–20 late in the second quarter. They had Texas uncomfortable, the crowd engaged, and momentum ready to turn.

Good programs adjust at halftime. The others get steamrolled.

Texas hit Arkansas with a 17–0 push in barely seven minutes stretching across the break, and suddenly it was 38–20 and the familiar unraveling had arrived on schedule.

That’s who Arkansas is now: a team that can’t survive the sport’s most decisive stretch — the early third quarter — and doesn’t know how to stop the bleeding once it starts.

Interim coach Bobby Petrino didn’t bother with coach-speak afterward.

“I felt like in the second half … there was an old-fashioned ass-kicking. They got after us. … We couldn’t stop them,” he said.

Coming from Petrino — a coach who once built top-10 teams — that statement wasn’t just blunt. It was an indictment.

Texas didn’t expose Arkansas. It confirmed what the SEC already knows

This wasn’t a matchup of equal footing. It was a matchup of a national power on the rise versus a program losing ground every week. Texas shredded Arkansas with 11 passing plays of at least 15 yards and two runs over 10.

Some were contested. Most were not. Too often, Arkansas’ defensive backs were trailing the play by several steps, chasing receivers who had already broken the coverage open.

Every SEC coach watching that tape will see what Texas saw that Arkansas doesn’t just give up explosive plays — it gives them away.

And these weren’t random breakdowns. They were repeated failures in space, in leverage, and in communication.

Texas didn’t need tricks or misdirection. It simply ran through the same voids opponents have been hitting for months.

They did use a trick, throwing a pass to Arch Manning after a double reverse. Considering he threw four touchdown passes on the day they probably did it for fun just to prove they could.

Arch Manning catching a reverse pass for touchdown at the football game between the Texas Longhorns and Arkansas Razorbacks at DKR Texas Memorial Stadium in Austin, Texas on November 22, 2025. #ArchManning #HookEm #TexasLonghorns #TexasFootball pic.twitter.com/bxQakZ5LoI

— Ralph Arvesen (@RalphArvesen) November 23, 2025

Turnovers didn’t cause the collapse – they accelerated it

A tipped-pass interception by Taylen Green and a strip-sack fumble returned for a touchdown by Liona Lefau were both damaging. But they weren’t the reason Arkansas lost.

They were simply the exclamation points on a game already tilting fast.

Petrino called both turnovers “killers,” and he was right. The interception came on what should have been a harmless first-down throw. The fumble return stretched the score to 52–23 and erased even the faintest hope of a comeback.

But turnovers only become fatal when a team lacks the ability to recover from them. Arkansas hasn’t shown that ability in a long time.

Even Petrino’s praise for KJ Jackson — “He gave us a spark … showed toughness” — only highlighted the deeper issue. Arkansas is at the stage where sparks are mistaken for solutions.

Arkansas Razorbacks coach Bobby Petrino walks off the field after 52-37 loss to the Texas Longhorns in Austin, Texas. | Munir El Khatib-allHOGS Images

National view – Arkansas isn’t slipping, it’s sinking

At 2–9 overall and 0–8 in the SEC, the Razorbacks aren’t just having a down year. Programs have down years. This is something else. This is a team that looks the same in every loss — competitive early, overwhelmed in the third quarter, and finished off by explosive plays and turnovers.

That’s not inconsistency. That’s identity.

Nationally, Arkansas is drifting further from the league’s rising middle class, let alone the top. Missouri and Ole Miss, programs that fought for scraps a decade ago, have built stability, modernized offenses, invested in development, and found cohesion. Arkansas has not.

The Razorbacks don’t look like a program stuck in neutral. They look like a program spinning backward.

Long-term concern: Nothing that happened against Texas feels fixable overnight

Missouri comes to Fayetteville next.

The Razorbacks will put together the same message about competing for 60 minutes, cleaning up assignments, tackling better, eliminating big plays and turnovers.

But nationally, the question isn’t whether Arkansas can correct those things in six days. It’s whether Arkansas can correct them at all.

The patterns aren’t random. They’re recurring. They’re ingrained. And they’re now visible to every program, every recruit, every analyst, and every fan outside the state.

The Razorbacks once used toughness and identity to make up for talent gaps. Now the identity itself is the problem.

The second-half collapses aren’t just symptoms — they’re the defining feature of a program that has lost its edge, lost its confidence, and lost its place in the SEC hierarchy.

Texas didn’t beat Arkansas because of matchups. It beat the Razorbacks because it’s a program rising while Arkansas tumbles.

Saturday’s loss didn’t say something new about the Razorbacks. It said this is who they are right now, and unless something fundamentally changes, the rest of the country will continue to treat the Hogs exactly like Texas did — as a game you survive early, and bury late.