It’s Texas week, Everydayers, and Tuesday’s Flagship opened with the best news Ole Miss has gotten all year: the best pass rusher in the country may not be on the field Saturday night in Austin. From there we ran a They Said What on Pete Golding’s Monday press conference — why he isn’t buying the Texas collapse, and the warning he handed his own team coming off a 31-3 win over Missouri. Here’s what mattered. Hotty Toddy.
Colin Simmons being out is the biggest break of the season
Yahoo Sports reported Monday that Colin Simmons — Texas’s star edge and the national leader in both sacks (10.5) and tackles for loss (16) — is out multiple weeks with a high ankle sprain, with Orange Bloods putting the timeline at three to four weeks. That covers Saturday. And it matters more than any single injury should, because everything the Texas defense does is built on getting home with four rushers so it can drop seven into coverage and take away your first read. Remove the best pass rusher in America and the math changes on every single snap.
It also lands squarely against the one offense built to punish it. Ole Miss has allowed the fewest sacks in the SEC, under one per game and 10th in the country, and Trinidad Chambliss has been the most protected quarterback in the league. That’s why I called it the single biggest break of the season on the show. One more wrinkle worth keeping: Simmons is a Duncanville, Texas product, and so is freshman Landon Barnes, who grabbed his first career interception against Missouri — he’s the player who replaced Simmons at Duncanville High. Two generations of pass rushers out of the same program.
Pete Golding isn’t buying the Texas collapse
The rest of the country has spent two weeks saying Arch Manning is the problem and Texas is coming apart. Golding went the other way. He said Arch should be the top pick in the draft and that he could cut up 25 plays to prove it — elite arm talent, more athletic than people give him credit for, and still able to extend plays. He called Steve Sarkisian one of the best play-callers in the country and said it isn’t close. His read is that Texas has mostly been unlucky — balls hitting receivers in the chest and bouncing up into interceptions — on a team that was ranked No. 1 just over a week ago, beat Ohio State, and lost both of its games this month by a field goal.
He also spelled out how Texas wants to win: get the run game going to set up the play-action, and if Ole Miss can’t stop the run on early downs, you end up one-on-one with first-round draft picks and you don’t like where you sit. His closing note was a warning — they know their backs are against the wall, and they’re going to bring their best shot. For the record, Texas opened as just a 3.5-point favorite on FanDuel, but the point of the segment was never the number; it was not letting a two-loss stretch disguise how dangerous this team still is. That’s how you keep yourself out of a trap.
The warning that wasn’t about Texas
The most important thing Golding said Monday had nothing to do with Texas — it was aimed at his own team after the 31-3 win. He warned about the false confidence that outcomes can create: you look at the scoreboard, you see that you won, and you feel good about where you are, even when the body of work says you might have gotten a little lucky. It’s very Nick Saban — find the four missed tackles after a blowout and coach them like they’re the worst thing that ever happened.
He also pushed back on the idea that the defense simply got simpler after the Florida loss. In his telling it wasn’t a new call; what changed was attention to detail and focus, along with cutting the things they weren’t executing well. This is a 5-1 team with that Florida loss still in the building, and he’s coaching it that way. Around it came the notes: Luke Ferrelli, who leads the team in tackles, was our Player of the Game; Golding praised Tah’j Butler for his consistency and likes where Blake Purchase is settling in inside. Kewan Lacy gets a homecoming of sorts back in his home state, with the plan unchanged beyond the usual emphasis on ball security. And on special teams, a foot issue has Lucas Carneiro off kickoffs — Peter McStravick’s big leg has taken those over — but Carneiro is still 9-for-11 on field goals and a perfect 26-for-26 on extra points.
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