Texas’ defense dominates in 34-3 football victory over Oklahoma in the Red River Rivalry

Texas came into Saturday’s Red River Rivalry as a 16.5-point favorite. After a slow first quarter, the Longhorns played like favorites and dominated in the 34-3 win over Oklahoma at the Cotton Bowl.

After the game Texas head coach Steve Sarkisian was happy with his team’s performance.

“Really proud of these guys, proud of the team. You know, you get into games like this, and there’s so much emotion involved that you can get distracted in the emotion. You can get distracted by the adversity, and really proud of this group and the whole team, these guys in particular, because they bought into the preparation,” said Sarkisian, “There’s going to be some adversity. As long as we stick together like we can, we can turn the corner. Today’s game was no different.”

Texas took control of the game near the end of the second quarter. The Longhorns led by two scores and extended their lead after fumbles on consecutive possessions by true freshman Oklahoma quarterback Michael Hawkins Jr. and running back Taylor Tatum. The Longhorns had a 21-3 lead at halftime.

Slow start for Longhorns’ offense

Texas had the No. 8 ranked scoring offense in the country coming into Saturday’s game, which made the first-quarter production seem surprising.

The Longhorns had 13 yards of total offense in the first quarter and didn’t record a single first down or third-down conversion, going zero for 3 in the quarter.

In the second quarter, though, the team found its rhythm.

Texas quarterback Quin Ewers found Ryan Wingo and De’Andre Moore Jr. for big gains in the air of 26 and 44 yards while the offensive line paved the way for multiple 20-plus yard runs, including two that went for touchdowns.

Sarkisian talked about how things turned around for his team in the second quarter.

“Second quarter was obviously huge in the ballgame, “ said Sarkisian, “Some critical third-down conversions [by] DeAndre Moore, Ryan Wingo, Tre showed up, [Quintrevion] Weisner, and then the defense started turning the ball over and stopping the run, and the game went the way that it went. So proud of the guys. Like I told them in the locker room, this is a great win. Getting the golden hat back is a tremendous honor for these guys.”

One of those scores came after Wisner fumbled near the goal line after a 36-yard run, and Silas Bolden recovered the ball in the end zone for Texas.

Wisner led the Longhorns’ rushing attack with 13 carries for 118 yards with a touchdown

Texas scored 21 points in the second quarter while putting up 222 yards of total offense and going 3 for 5 on third-down conversions.

From the second quarter on, the Longhorns scored 34 straight unanswered points.

Longhorn defense dominates

While the offense took time to get started, the defense, despite good field position on multiple drives, held the Oklahoma offense to three points in the first half. The Sooners were just unable to move the ball against a stout Texas defense.

Texas completely stymied Oklahoma’s rushing attack, holding the Sooners’ dynamic quarterback to 27 yards on 20 carries, while the other OU runners had 18 carries for 58 yards.

On third down, the Longhorns defense was especially good and held Oklahoma to 4 for 14 on third down.

Hawkins Jr. completed 15 of 23 passes for 116 yards and found himself unable to make big plays in the passing game against the Texas secondary. After scoring the game’s first points with a field goal, the Sooner offense was shut out over the rest failing to make any trips to the red zone until the game’s final moments.

The Sooners were missing wide receivers Jayden Gibson and Jalil Farooq as well as the team’s leading pass catcher Deion Burks and last year’s Red River Rivalry hero Nic Anderson.

Despite the dominating performance Texas safety Michael Taafe said the the Longhorns haven’t played their best football yet.

“I always say our best ball is yet to come. We only let three points up today, but we’re going to go look at that film, and we’re going to see some run fits, that I missed, that some other people missed, and we’re going to clean those up, and our best ball is yet to come. I don’t think there’s a better way to say that,” said Taafe. “Because the press and everybody around outside the locker room might say, ‘Wow, this is such a complete defense,’ but everybody in the locker room knows that the offense gets after our butt a lot during the week of practice, and so we have so much to get better at, and that’s what I’m so excited for.”

Quinn Ewers’ first game back

Ewers had missed the past two games with an oblique injury after setting a torrid pace to start the season 691 yards with eight touchdowns and two interceptions.

Oklahoma came into the game with the 76th-ranked passing defense in college football but made life hard on the senior quarterback in his return to action, forcing a turnover on his first possession.

After the game, Ewers said he was happy with how he and the offense responded to early adversity.

“A rough start, but I think overall, we did a good job of when adversity struck, we overcame it and know it’s, it’s 10% what happens ... 90% how you overcome it, and what you do. So I mean, overall, I think I need to play better, but I think we did a good job overcoming some adversity early,” said Ewers.

Ewers finished the game 20 of 29 for 199 yards passing with a rushing and passing touchdown and an interception.

Oklahoma is set to play South Carolina next, on Oct. 19th at Memorial Stadium at a time to be determined.

Texas is set to return to action at 6:30 p.m. against Georgia at DKR-Texas Memorial Stadium on Oct. 19.