Texas went into Columbia on Saturday with no room left for a bad day, and Arch Manning did not give it one. Manning completed 28 of 38 passes for 297 yards and three touchdowns without a turnover, and the No. 7 Longhorns scored the final 21 points of the game to beat No. 18 Missouri 34-20 at Memorial Stadium.
For a two loss team, the math is plain. One more defeat likely ends the playoff conversation. Instead, Texas (7-2, 4-2 SEC) added a ranked road win to a resume that already stood out, and it did it with the kind of steady quarterback play the Longhorns have waited all season to see. The game was one of the seven ranked matchups on Saturday’s loaded college football schedule, and it lived up to the billing.
A tied game, then a Missouri surge
The first half gave Texas little to celebrate. The teams went to the locker room tied 10-10, and Missouri struck first after the break. Austin Simmons, who finished 23 of 43 for 252 yards, found Naeshaun Montgomery for a 72 yard touchdown in the third quarter, and the Tigers led 20-13 in front of a loud home crowd.
That was the moment the game could have slipped away. Manning answered instead. Facing third and 10, he hit Jermaine Bishop Jr. for a 25 yard touchdown that tied the game at 20, the second time on the day he had pulled Texas level after a Missouri score. He did it without one of his top targets, too. Wide receiver Cam Coleman, a team leader in yards per catch and touchdowns, did not play, according to USA Today.
The drive that changed the game
The go ahead score came with 5:03 left. Manning found running back Raleek Brown on a wheel route down the right sideline for a 23 yard touchdown, and Texas led for the first time all afternoon, 27-20. Brown was not done. He finished with 85 rushing yards and closed the game out with an 8 yard touchdown run in the final two minutes, his second score of the fourth quarter, to make it 34-20.
The clean sheet mattered as much as the yardage. This was Manning’s second straight game with three touchdown passes and no interceptions, following his three touchdown day against Mississippi State. On the road, in a game Texas had to have, he threw no pass that put his defense in trouble. For a quarterback whose season has swung between brilliant and shaky, two calm weeks in a row is a real shift.
What the win does to the playoff race
The Associated Press noted that the win was Texas’s fourth this season over a top 20 opponent, and that kind of resume is exactly what the playoff committee rewards in November. A two loss team cannot point to a perfect record. It can point to who it beat, and where. A ranked win on the road, in front of a sellout crowd, carries weight.
Missouri (6-3, 3-3 SEC) leaves with a harder road. The Tigers’ playoff hopes now run through a trip to Georgia next Saturday, November 14, one of the toughest places in the country to win. Texas, meanwhile, controls its own case. Keep winning, and the Longhorns will be very hard to leave out. Follow every turn of the race in our Sports coverage.
Sources: Associated Press game recap, November 7, 2026; sportradar box score; USA Today; University of Missouri athletics.