AUSTIN — Texas earned its fifth win of the season against the Kentucky Wildcats on Saturday night, and it was all thanks to the stellar defensive performance that we continue to see time and time again.

It was a rocky game for the offense, which only scored one touchdown, and that was thanks to Ryan Niblett returning a punt for 45 yards to put the Longhorns’ offense right on Kentucky’s five-yard line and in position to score.

Aside from that, the entire offense was incapable of making anything happen the entire game, as it frequently fell three-and-out on many drives. Most, if not all, of the blame can be split between two things: Arch Manning and Steve Sarkisian.

Manning failed to do his job, and Sarkisian had quite questionable offensive play-calling for yet another game.

The defense was amazing, consistently holding the Wildcats’ offense while forcing five sacks, 11 tackles for a loss, two quarterback hurries, four pass deflections, an interception and two forced fumbles, although the two fumbles weren’t recovered.

It was a completely disappointing game in which the offense failed in every facet. Sarkisian addressed the close win post-game.

“I always feel like once a year you have a culture win where the game’s not pretty but the team, because the team is so close, finds a way to win the game,” Sarkisian said. “Tonight, these guys found a way to win when the game was sliding in the wrong direction. Absolute credit to our defense. What a tremendous goal-line stand in overtime. What a tremendous job by our special teams, Mason [Shipley], Jack [Bouwmeester], Ryan Niblett, that punt return unit to the way they played in that phase of the game. All in all, as I told the team, half the SEC lost today. We’re on the other half that won. We’ve got plenty of work to do, but man, what a win. I’ve said this all along: when you go on the road at night in the SEC, this league is tough. It’s hard. For us to find a way to win this game tonight, I’m very happy about that.”

Hopefully, the Longhorns will imrpove and find a better, more efficient system for the offense as it hits the road for yet another week to go face Mississippi State, before returning home to face No. 10 Vanderbilt.

It feels like that’s what’s getting said after almost every game now, but that’s what has to happen. We’ll see what really happens, though, when the Longhorns take on the Bulldogs on Saturday at 3:15 p.m. CT on SEC Network.