AUSTIN — No. 9 Texas (3-1) is set to face the Florida Gators (1-3) on Saturday to open SEC play. The Longhorns seemed to hit their stride against Sam Houston, right before their bye week, and they’ll need to keep up the momentum.

Early offensive struggles plagued Texas, resulting in a loss to Ohio State, unsatisfying wins over Group of 5 teams, and also resulting in quarterback Arch Manning’s Heisman odds to drop.

Fans can’t write the Florida game off as an easy win just because of the Gators’ record; they’re a good team with a good defense, but like Texas, they have had some underwhelming offensive performances.

Here are a few things that we’ll need to see from the Longhorns on Saturday, if we want to see a good start to conference play.

Consistent QB play

We need to see Manning stay consistent throughout the game, and hopefully, have his emotion-filled breakout performance against Sam Houston carry into this game, as that is the Manning we thought we were going to get headed into the season.

Manning playing with emotion is also something that head coach Steve Sarkisian has emphasized makes him better.

“There’s a lot more personality in there than sometimes everyone gets to see,” Sarkisian said. “I always feel like he’s a little bit at his best when that emotion kind of comes out some. I think there was a lot built up in there.”

If Manning can continue to play like he’s got his last shot to prove the doubters wrong and continue throwing for 300+ yards, then the Longhorns offense will be in a good situation come Saturday in The Swamp.

Tre Wisner

It’s as simple as this: Tre Wisner. Wisner, the starting running back, got injured in the Week 1 game against No. 1 Ohio State and has missed every game since. However, he’s now on track to make his return against the Gators.

Wisner was a 1,000+ yard rusher last year and has the potential to be a superstar. Without Wisner, the Texas run game has lacked somewhat, and often relied on Manning to move the ball with his legs.

If the Longhorns can scheme up some good run blocks and designs for Wisner on Saturday, then the Texas offense could see revamped success in the ground game that they’ve been unable to find in his absence.

With Wisner back, it will also take some of the workload off the younger guys in the running back room, allowing for more consistent and efficient play from all of the running backs, which is one key to success against a strong Florida defense.

A defense ready to make a statement

The Texas defense has been playing like it could be the reason the Longhorns see postseason success. We’ll need to see the same stuff in The Swamp, or else this Florida offense could get hot just in time to earn its second win of the season.

There’s not much more that we could really hope to see from the defense, except for some individual performances, but what we can hope for is a defense that picks up where it left off and continues to show out.

The defense has had some slight issues at times with getting real pressure on the quarterback and getting stops in the backfield, whether that be sacks or tackles for a loss, so it’ll be interesting to see if the Texas defensive line can impact the Florida offense.

We’ll need to see freshman cornerback Graceson Littleton show up again, though. He’s proven himself as a freshman who can compete with the likes of Jeremiah Smith, so we need to see him do the same against these Florida receivers.