It was 100 degrees in Austin, and two teams of Texas football players were standing at midfield arguing about a photograph.
Arch Manning's team said it won the scavenger hunt. Colin Simmons' team said it won. Both texted the finish-line picture to the coaches at the same moment.
"It really was a tie," Simmons said. "He could think he won, but he didn't win."
Nobody was declared the winner in late July because that wasn't the point of the exercise. Steve Sarkisian moved his team-building work from August to February this year and turned July into a competition over push-ups and landmarks on the 40 Acres, because the last time he assumed a Texas team would find itself, it went 10-3 and watched the College Football Playoff from home.
"I failed our team a year ago by doing it that way," Sarkisian said.
Many assumed Texas would figure it out in 2025. The Longhorns opened last season No. 1 in polls, but finished No. 13 in the final CFP rankings, undone by a 14-7 loss at Ohio State in Week 1, a 29-21 loss at Florida to a team that finished 4-8, and a third straight defeat to Georgia. Sarkisian didn't idle after the season. He surprisingly fired defensive coordinator Pete Kwiatkowski, who had been with him all five years, and brought back Will Muschamp, who ran the Texas defense from 2008 to 2010 and was once the head coach in waiting. He signed 47 new players, including the nation's No. 3 transfer class, peppered with some of the most talented and productive players in the country.
The list of newcomers reads more like an All-American team than a typical portal haul. Receiver Cam Coleman. Running backs Hollywood Smothers and Raleek Brown. The roster, one could argue, is more talented than the one that started No. 1 last season.
The skepticism, however, is just as real. Whether it's Sarkisian falling short of SEC titles and deep CFP runs, or Arch Manning's slow start last season – or the "Texas is back" narrative that has become more meme folly than declaration — the lasso holding the Horns back in the media is taut.
On Monday, the AP voters slotted Texas fifth — one spot lower than the coaches — and the Longhorns got zero first-place votes, while five others did. SEC media in July picked Georgia to win the league with 88 votes; Texas was second with 57. Ole Miss quarterback Trinidad Chambliss edged Manning for first-team All-SEC quarterback.
Oddsmakers, meanwhile, list Texas among the shortest national title prices in the sport — first in the SEC — and Manning at or near the top of the Heisman board.
"We're competing for an SEC championship this year, and we're competing for a national championship," Sarkisian said. "It is what it is. We're at the University of Texas. There aren't rebuilding years. There aren't years where you say, 'Hey, if we can get here, it's going to be OK.' That's our mission. That's what we go for year in and year out.
"It's ironic," Sarkisian continued as he spoke to a smaller contingent of reporters at SEC media days in July. "I had some time the last few days to watch media days a little bit, and people talking about expectations for Texas. I can tell you the expectations are a lot higher within our building than they are in the outside world."
Every Texas player at media days used the same phrase, unprompted.
"The standard is the standard," said pass rusher Colin Simmons, who led the SEC with 12 sacks last season. "Sarkisian definitely emphasized that everything he does, the way he carries himself, the way he wants his team to be carried, the culture, everything."
Later, someone asked Simmons for his personal goals.
"Have fun and win a national championship," he said.
Would anything less than a national championship be a disappointment?
"That's what we've been working for this whole offseason," he said. "So, falling short of that, that's not the standard."
CBS Sports ranked the Texas roster the most complete in college football in May, ahead of Ohio State and Georgia. Texas program sources have pushed back on the idea that the roster clears $40 million, an argument nobody outside Austin accepts. One SEC general manager pushed back, too. "Texas, when you talk to someone there, they downplay it. But they've got money," they told CBS Sports' Chris Hummer and John Talty.
The portal is where Texas did its best work in the offseason. They added Coleman, a five-star receiver with 13 touchdowns in two seasons for an Auburn team without a serviceable quarterback, and completely rebuilt the running back room after four runners left the team. They added Smothers of NC State, who ran for 939 yards a year ago, and Brown, who ran for 1,141. Their task is simple: revitalize a rushing attack that ranked 119th last season and required their quarterback to lead the team in rushing TDs.
"You got to have capable runners that can do that," Sarkisian said. "You've got to provide weapons on the perimeter that people have to deploy to guard against."
As talented as the roster is, questions still remain about the quarterback with the five-star rating and the five-star legacy. Manning threw for 3,163 yards with 26 touchdowns and seven interceptions in his first full season as a starter, but he was slow to warm up before breaking out against an easier back half of the schedule. Last week, CBS Sports polled two college general managers, two NFL scouts and six personnel executives on the top 10 players in Blake Brockermeyer's Top 150 players for the upcoming season. Manning, who ranked ninth, drew the second-most votes as overrated. One NFL evaluator went further, saying Manning was not a top-10 quarterback.
"Watch him throw a deep out," the scout said. "He'll sail it every time."
Manning has heard versions of the criticism since he was 16.
"There's nothing you can do. Everyone has an opinion, and people are paid to talk in the media, so there's really nothing you can do," he said in July. "I'm trying to control the controllables."
Still, there's that legacy and the comparisons that scouts and analysts make about Manning's playing style and how it translates in the NFL.
"Comparison, they say, is a thief of joy, so I'm trying to not compare myself to others. I guess that's y'all's job," he said.
Sarkisian has watched Arch's whole arc up close, including the part where the same people who anointed Manning turned on him early last season.
"I think the way of what he got put through probably would have melted or destroyed 99% of people in his shoes," Sarkisian said. "All he did was stay consistent and true to who he was, which was to continue to work hard, continue to be a great teammate, try to get better, and he did. He came out and played the second half of the season at a really high level."
Manning was 7-1 in the final eight games last season, throwing for 2,012 yards and 15 touchdowns against only two interceptions. He ran for 155 yards and two touchdowns in a Citrus Bowl win against Michigan.
Before that came the loss to Ohio State in Week 1, and the mid-season collapse at four-win Florida. Manning got hit all afternoon as he absorbed six sacks, leading many to wonder if Manning was overrated.
"I mean, Arch was just getting killed that game because of us," said left tackle Trevor Goosby, a first-round draft prospect next spring. "And he came back, didn't miss a single rep during an OU week, and didn't even trash talk us one time or didn't even put us down. It's like for me, that just tells me I'm gonna put my life on the line for him cuz he's willing to do that for us."
Sarkisian has spent eight months arguing that the committee punished him for scheduling Ohio State.
"If I don't play Ohio State and I play Jones Junior High, and we're 10-2 and our two losses are to Georgia and Florida, we're a playoff team," he said.
The Longhorns host Ohio State on Sept. 12 in a rematch of the game that broke last season, then go to Tennessee, Missouri, LSU and Texas A&M in the SEC's first nine-game conference season.
Outside of falling one win short of the playoffs, there is the obvious roadblock on their path to the CFP and an SEC title. Texas has played Georgia three times in the last two seasons, losing all three while averaging only 27 yards and 1.2 yards per carry. The Bulldogs have won back-to-back SEC titles.
"If you want to be the champion, you got to beat the champion," Sarkisian said. "We've played Georgia three times. They've beaten us. All the credit in the world to Kirby (Smart), their team. They're tough. They're good. If we want to be a champion, I'm guessing we'll probably have to beat the champion to make that happen."
Hypotheticals rule the offseason, and they're amplified at bluebloods. Texas won't know until it knows, even if the roster on paper is arguably the best in the country. Texas sits somewhere between the extremes.
The best quarterback in the country, or a famous name attached to ordinary production.
The richest roster in the country, or a program that would rather you not ask what it costs.
A defense that "can be the best defense in college football," as Simmons said, or a unit still in search of consistency under Muschamp.
Can be.
Or will be.
