Time for Texas fans to tap the breaks on the national championship talk. Suddenly, this supposed cakewalk to the SEC title isn’t a sure thing, either.

No. 5 Georgia made sure to let the world know Saturday night it’s not ready to hand anything over to No. 1 Texas just yet.

The Bulldogs’ defense smothered, suffocated and snuffed out darn near anything the Longhorns tried on offense and came away with a 30-15 win in the highly-anticipated, top-five matchup at Royal-Memorial Stadium.

Texas (6-1, 2-1 SEC) fell from the ranks of the unbeaten while Georgia (6-1, 4-1) captured what was most assuredly a must-win game to those in Athens.

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Texas coach Steve Sarkisian started quarterback Quinn Ewers, subbed him out for backup Arch Manning and then went back to Ewers for the second half. It didn’t matter.

Ewers and Manning combined for three lost fumbles. Ewers also had one interception. The offense went 2-for-14 on third down and turned it over four times on downs, including three times on the final three possessions. Nobody can win playing like that. 

The record crowd of 105,215 — literally two more people than the final head count against Alabama in 2022 — left deflated.

This wasn’t a Texas defensive problem. This was on the offense. The Bulldogs’ scoring drives were from 13, 13, 34, 25 and 4 yards out as they ran up a 23-0 lead. All of those short fields were due to Texas’ offensive failures.

In the end, a wild Texas interception, a reversal by officials, hundreds of bottles thrown onto the field, a discussion and then another officiating reversal didn’t matter. That Jahdae Barron play helped the Horns get a short field.

But Georgia had an answer — a stunning 89-yard drive capped by Trevor Etienne’s 1-yard touchdown run. Then, the Dawgs forced the Horns to turn it over on downs on three straight possessions to close out the game.

The season is far from over, but now just about everyone will view Ewers with more skepticism. Sarkisian will have to go even further defending Ewers from those wanting Manning to take the controls.

Ewers finished the game 25-for-43 for 211 yards with two touchdowns (2 and 17 yards). But there was almost no downfield passing, and Ewers held the ball far too long than anyone should against Georgia’s defensive front.

Sarkisian inserted Manning into the game with 4:40 left in the second quarter, but the redshirt freshman didn’t fare much better. Manning completed three of six passes for 19 yards and lost a fumble, too.

“Well, I was just trying to settle Quinn a little bit,” Sarkisian told ABC’s Holly Rowe going into halftime. “Trying to give us a little bit of a spark. We’ve got to get out of our own way. We’re not playing very well as a unit.”

Granted, this may not be the eye-popping Georgia defense that won back-to-back national titles. But it’s still the Dawgs.

It wasn’t like Georgia’s Carson Beck tore it up. Beck completed 23 of 41 passes for 175 yards but also threw three interceptions himself. The Bulldogs had 108 rushing yards, which isn’t anything to shout from the rooftops.

Texas’ defense played winning football. The offense didn’t.

Next comes a road trip to pesky Vanderbilt, followed by the rest of a meaty SEC schedule.

How Sarkisian handles the quarterback and offensive questions going forward is the new storyline for the season’s second half.