AUSTIN — The Texas Longhorns managed to escape a scare in Starkville on Saturday afternoon after going into overtime against the Bulldogs. Texas pulled out the last-second win after scoring 24 unanswered points.

It was a rough and ugly game for the Longhorns in most areas of the field; the defense wasn’t great, and quarterback Arch Manning struggled before getting hot and leading the comeback, while the run game couldn’t get going at all.

The run game struggled to gain momentum throughout the game, and although Manning wasn’t the most accurate throughout the game, he still had to deal with some bad drops from his receivers, which hurt the offense’s momentum.

Head coach Steve Sarkisian called the game a “culture win” and addressed the victory post-game.

“I thought, you know, when I said last week, like once a year, you have culture wins,” Sarkisian said. “And that was our culture win last week. I think we got a mulligan because tonight was a culture win. I said this to the team … I don’t know if I’ve ever been more proud of a group of guys. Because when they go up 17 in the fourth quarter, and you guys have been covering football long enough to know how many teams wilt, and the game’s over at that moment. And these guys literally didn’t blink. And that was one of the messages yesterday to the team, was our toughness was going to have to be the best that it’s ever been in our program tonight. This was our fourth-straight week on the road. It’s taken its toll on coaches, players, staff members. It’s long, it’s a journey, and this conference is hard. And the toughness they displayed, not only the physical toughness, but the mental toughness that was needed tonight, showed. Texas Fight was on full display. There’s so many individual players that we could touch on and individual efforts and so on and so forth that I’m sure you’ll ask about. But at the end of the day, to come out of here with a win, scoring 24 unanswered points in the fourth quarter in overtime, again, I think it just speaks to our culture. Culture wins. We have talented people, but we have a tremendous culture, and it was on full display at the end of the game tonight.”

It was definitely a culture win for a team that has been struggling all season, especially through conference play. Although beating Kentucky in overtime in the previous game was big, scoring 24 unanswered points to win was even bigger.

Manning is hurt, but the hope is that it’s something a little more minor, like a concussion. Hopefully, he’ll be available and back on the field next week as the Longhorns take on the No. 9-ranked Vanderbilt Commodores.

This was a nice culture win for the team, which is especially nice to have before returning home to face a top-10 team. But we’ll see what happens next week when Texas faces Vanderbilt in Austin at 11 a.m. CT on Saturday.