By Steve Habel, Senior Editor
LUBBOCK, Texas — Let’s just get this out of the way at the start: if there are voters for the Heisman Trophy that aren’t considering Texas running back D’Onta Foreman as one of the finalists as the best player in college football they should stand up and be counted now rather than be shouted down in ridicule later.
Foreman was the difference — a man among lesser men — as he ran for 341 yards and three touchdowns as the Longhorns outlasted Texas Tech, 45-37, Saturday in Big 12 play on a cool and overcast afternoon at Jones AT&T Stadium.
It’s never easy to win in Lubbock, and Texas needed all Foreman could muster to get it done this time around. He rushed 33 times and scored on runs of 4, 38 and 74 yards, in the process becoming the first Longhorns player to rack up 300 or more yards on the ground since Ricky Williams amassed 350 yards against Iowa State in his Heisman Trophy season in 1998.
Foreman also is the first Longhorn running back with back-to-back 200-yard games since Hodges Mitchell in 2000 and is just the fourth Texas player to ever do so. With his 10th straight game of at least 100 yards, Foreman crept closer to the team record of 11 consecutive such performances as established by Earl Campbell in his Heisman Trophy season in 1977.
With all Foreman accomplished, it still was barely [s2If current_user_can(access_s2member_level2)]enough to garner the Longhorns (5-4 overall, 3-3 in Big 12 games) the victory.
Texas Tech (4-5 overall, 2-4 in Big 12) used a nine-yard Da’Leon Ward touchdown run after a Texas fumble to get back to within 45-37 with 10:50 to play. After the two teams traded failed fourth-down conversions deep in Texas Tech territory in the final four minutes, the Red Raiders drove to the Texas 20 in the final minute.
But on third down quarterback Patrick Mahomes II, forced to scramble to his left to avoid the Texas rush, lofted a pass to the end zone that was intercepted by the Longhorns’ Kris Boyd, cementing the Texas win.
“I wanted the game to fall on the defense’s hands there at the end because it’s just a confidence builder for them to go out and make a stop,” Texas coach Charlie Strong said. “You look at this team and how resilient they are and how they continue to battle … even though things may go against them someone steps up and makes a play.”
Mahomes threw for 367 yards and three touchdowns while leading the Red Raiders to 482 yards of total offense on 100 plays. Texas countered with 658 yards of total offense and got 244 yards and two touchdowns from freshman quarterback Shane Buechele.
This one was the back-and-forth offensive show that was expected with a handful of mistakes and a bevy of big plays thrown in for good measure.
Texas Tech got a three-yard Mahomes-to-Cameron Batson touchdown pass on its first offensive possession, marking the sixth time in nine games that the Longhorns have given up a score before their offense could get on the field.
Texas responded with a four-yard scoring run by Foreman three plays after a 52-yard pass from Buechele to Jake Oliver on the Longhorns’ first offensive snap.
The Red Raiders retook the lead on a 42-yard field goal by Clayton Hatfield when their next drive stalled at the Texas 25-yard-line. The Longhorns’ defense turned up the heat on Mahomes during the possession bring blitzes on seven of the nine snaps.
Texas took the lead on an arching, 16-yard pass from Buechele to fellow freshman Collin Johnson on which Tech defensive back D.J. Polite-Bray, who is listed at 6 feet, never had a chance against the 6-foot-6 Johnson. Trent Domingue added the extra point after an illegal procedure penalty and the Longhorns were up 14-10 at the 4:30 mark of the first quarter.
That lead lasted about as long as it took to write the above paragraph as Mahomes quickly drove the Red Raiders 87 yards in eight plays to a six-yard touchdown pass to Jonathan Giles. But Hatfield’s extra point kick was blocked, leaving Tech’s advantage at 16-14 with 1:23 to play in the first quarter.
One of the craziest plays of the season in college football also featured Foreman but ultimately garnered the Red Raiders a 23-14 lead midway through the second quarter.
Texas drove from its own 1-yard-line to the Tech 19 before Foreman took a handoff and plowed his way through the defense, carrying as many as eight players with him toward the end zone.
Just as he was making his final lunge for touchdown, Tech defensive back Douglas Coleman reached into the pile, wrenched the ball way from Foreman and sprinted to the opposite end zone 100 yards for a jaw-dropping touchdown and a reversal of fortune for the Red Raiders.
Replays were not conclusive enough to overturn the call that was made on the field, and — because the officials were still in chase mode from the far end of the field — they didn’t see that Coleman stepped out of bounds on the 2-yard-line before he reached the end zone while being collared by Texas wide receiver Devin Duvernay.
All the situation illustrated was that if it wasn’t for bad breaks, the Longhorns would get no breaks at all.
Undeterred, the Longhorns pushed back down the field, moving 75 yards in nine plays to the second scoring hookup from Buechele to Johnson, this time from nine yards out, that cut the Tech lead to 23-21 with 3:01 to play in the first half.
Then Texas grabbed reassumed the lead, moving 48 yards in 11 plays to a Domingue 29-yard field goal and a 24-23 lead at halftime.
The Longhorns outgained Tech, 390-233, in the first 30 minutes and ran 52 plays to the Red Raiders’ 37. Texas was 5-of-10 on third down and 1-for-1 on fourth down in the half.
Backup quarterback Tyrone Swoopes rammed home from the 4-yard line for a touchdown on UT’s opening drive of the third quarter, culminating a 11-play, 75-yard march and expanding the Longhorns’ lead to 31-23.
Mahomes and Batson hooked up for a seven-yard touchdown pass midway through the third quarter but the Red Raiders’ eschewed the chance to try to tie the game with a two-point conversion and accepted a 31-30 deficit.
Foreman then roared through the middle of the line untouched for a 38-yard touchdown that allowed the Longhorns to reestablish an eight-point lead at 38-30 with 6:15 to play in the third quarter.
But Foreman might have saved his best for the first play of the fourth quarter, when he stepped through a tackle at the line of scrimmage, lost his shoe and still outran the Tech defense for a 74-yard touchdown that swelled the Texas lead to 45-30 and put him over the 300-yard mark for the game.
“Foreman is a tremendous back,” Texas Tech coach Kliff Kingsbury said. “We knew he would get his but the defense made some unbelievable plays to get us the ball with the chance to win the game over and over and over.
“Offensively we kept floundering and not getting it done. All you can ask for is the ball with a chance to go win it and that’s what we had.”
Texas, now just one win away from bowl eligibility with three games remaining in the regular season, returns home to face 14th-ranked West Virginia (which beat Kansas Saturday, 48-21) next Saturday. Then the Longhorns will travel to Kansas Nov. 19 and host TCU on the day after Thanksgiving.
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