Texas-OU II: Big 12 Championship Preview

By Steve Habel, Senior Contributing Writer

ARLINGTON, Texas – No. 14 Texas heads to the Dallas-Fort Worth Metroplex on Saturday to battle No. 5 Oklahoma in the Big 12 Championship. The dustup will be contested at sold-out AT&T Stadium with kickoff at 11 a.m. Texas time.

Here’s what we will be looking for when the Longhorns and Sooners battle for the second time this season — with a Big 12 title and a bigger bowl berth beyond that on the line — which is the first time that’s occurred since 1903.

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NOTES, QUOTES, PLAYERS TO WATCH

♦ QB Sam Ehlinger, a sophomore, has become the unquestioned leader of the Longhorns offense. He hit on 16 of 28 passes for 154 yards and two touchdowns in the win over Kansas while adding another score on the ground despite being limited because of an injury to his right (throwing) shoulder. His school-record and Big 12 Conference streak of consecutive passes without throwing an interception ended at 308 in the second quarter of the win over the Jawhawks.

♦ WR Collin Johnson, a junior, caught a team-best four passes for 38 yards and a touchdown in the win over Kansas. With every game Johnson is continuing his role as the go-to receiver that the Longhorns have been looking for. Johnson is the huge, intermediate target that the Texas needs to help open up the offense because the 6-foot-6 receiver can go over or through most of the defensive backs that are covering him. He now has 57 receptions for 768 yards and six TDs combined in the first 12 games.

♦ LB Gary Johnson, a senior who came to Texas last year after playing in junior college, has already asserted himself as the Longhorns’ do-everything linebacker and be one of the team’s leaders. Johnson missed the Kansas game after being suspended for a violation of team rules but will be back for the OU dustup. At 6-foot and 230 pounds, Johnson, who earned a spot on the All Big-12 second-team, might be a little undersized to be a constant run stuffer, but he plays bigger than his size and hits as hard as anyone in college football. Johnson will make some plays this season where he will come from the far side of the field to force a turnover.

♦ CB Kris Boyd. No player on the Longhorns has been harder to predict over the past three seasons than Boyd, and continues his enigmatic play and actions 10 games into the 2018 campaign. Boyd has the skills to be a true shutdown corner – as long as he can keep his emotions in check. At 6-foot and 195 pounds, he has the size to take on and stop most of the receivers that will line up across from him. Boyd was named first-team All-Big 12 this week and had four tackles and a pass breakup in the win over Kansas. He has 54 stops, a sack, 2½ tackles for a loss, an interception, a forced fumble, a recovered fumble and 15 pass breakups for the season.

SERIES HISTORY

There is no rivalry quite like the Texas-Oklahoma series, which is being played for the 114th time Saturday. Texas leads the series 62-46-5. The series, which began in 1900, has been played in Dallas since 1912 and at the State Fair since 1929, but Saturday’s Big 12 Championship Game will be played in a different setting – at AT&T Stadium in Arlington.

Saturday marks just the third time ever (also 1901) that the two schools will meet for a second time in a season — and the first time that’s happened in more than a century. In 1901, UT won 12-6 on Oct. 19 at home and then 11-0 on Nov. 25 at Oklahoma. In 1903, UT tied 6-6 on Oct. 17 at home and then won 11-5 at Oklahoma on Nov. 13.

The first matchup between the two teams in 1900 ended with a 28-2 Longhorns’ victory. Texas is the only Big 12 Conference team that holds an all-time series lead against the Sooners. Only Texas A&M (118 times) has played the Longhorns on more occasions. Since 1900, the only years Texas and Oklahoma have not played were 1918, ’20, ’21 and 1924-28.

QUOTE TO NOTE

“Winning is really hard, really, really hard. Winning this game will be extremely hard. Winning a bowl game will be hard. Winning games next year will be hard. But, again, I love where we’re at in terms of the development of our players, and the young players especially. We’re not good enough right now to blow anybody out. But we’re just good enough to beat anybody. That’s a testament to the development of these players, and I couldn’t be prouder of them.” – Texas coach Tom Herman, about the progress of his team.

GAME BREAKDOWN

KEY MATCHUP

The Texas defense versus the Oklahoma rushing attack. The Longhorns know that OU’s passing attack will be tough to stop, but they have to try to make the Sooners as one-dimensional as possible and the way to do that is by stopping their run game, and especially keeping Oklahoma quarterback Kyler Murray bottled up.

DRAFT SLANT

 

♦ WR Collin Johnson has the size (6-foot-6, 215 pounds), athleticism and speed that the NFL loves, but he needs to be more aggressive. Texas coach Tom Herman has ordered his quarterbacks to go to the go-route to Johnson anytime and every time he draws single coverage, and that strategy worked for a 22-yard TD in the loss to Maryland. He now has 57 catches for 768 yards and six TDs combined in the first 12 games.

ROSTER REPORT

♦ QB Sam Ehlinger has his school- and Big 12- record for consecutive passes without an interception snapped at 308 by a second-quarter interception last week at Kansas , surpassing Major Applewhite’s school record of 156 in 1999 and Big 12 mark of 273 as set by former West Virginia quarterback Gino Smith. He is on the watch list for the 2018 Manning Award.

♦ The last time the rivals played anywhere other than Dallas (Fair Park Stadium or Cotton Bowl) was 1923 at Clark Field in Austin, one year prior to construction of what’s now called Darrell K Royal-Texas Memorial Stadium.

♦ After winning seven games including the Texas Bowl last season, the Longhorns are guaranteed a big postseason destination – maybe New Orleans, or Atlanta, or San Antonio – regardless of the outcome of Saturday’s game.

♦ UT finished the home portion of the schedule 5-1 inside Darrell K Royal-Texas Memorial Stadium. The five wins are the most at home since the 2009 season for the Longhorns.

♦ After missing a combined 36 games along the offensive line in 2017, UT’s starting offensive linemen have missed just three combined games so far in 2018.

♦ Texas is the only Big 12 program with a winning record against the Sooners. Oklahoma owns a 25-20-3 advantage since 1971. In the Big 12 era, OU is 13-10 against the Longhorns. The Sooners have won six of the last nine meetings and 12 of the past 19.

AND ABOUT THOSE SOONERS

♦ Oklahoma (11-1, 8-1 Big 12) goes for its fourth consecutive Big 12 title and 12th overall in the showdown with the Longhorns. Saturday’s game will feature the programs with the most Big 12 Championships (Oklahoma has 11 and Texas has three). This will mark the first Big 12 Championship Game between the Sooners and Longhorns.

♦ A win Saturday would mark Oklahoma’s fourth straight league crown. The last time the Sooners won four consecutive conference championships was 1984-87 under head coach Barry Switzer. The last Power Five program to win four straight outright league titles was Florida (1993-96).

♦ OU has won 33 of its last 35 games (.943) against Big 12 opponents dating back to the 2015 season. The losses were to Iowa State last season (38- 31) and to Texas this year (48-45 on Oct. 6). Nineteen of those 33 victories have been by at least 15 points, and nine by at least 30 points.

♦ Oklahoma has scored at least 45 points in eight straight games (averaging 53.4 during the stretch), which is the longest streak in school history. The previous record was seven consecutive games in 2008. It is also the longest same-season streak by an FBS team since at least 1980.

♦ OU is the nation’s only team this year with at least 30 rushing touchdowns (39) and at least 30 passing TDs (38).

♦ Saturday will mark the first time since the 1978 season — and just the third time in school history — for Oklahoma to face a team it lost to earlier in the same campaign. Under Switzer, the No. 1-ranked Sooners lost 17-14 at No. 4 Nebraska on Nov. 11, 1978. The teams met again on Jan. 1, with No. 4 OU posting a 31-24 Orange Bowl victory over the No. 6 Huskers. In 1901, the Sooners lost 12-6 at Texas on Oct. 19 and then dropped an 11-0 contest in Norman on Nov. 25.

♦ Oklahoma leads the country in total offense (583.8 yards per game; next most is 547.6), scoring offense (50.3 points per game) and yards per play (8.9; next most is 8.0).
♦ Oklahoma has rushed for at least 300 yards and passed for at least 300 in a game a school-record five times already this year (the previous record was two times in 2012), including in four of the last five contests. Entering this season, the feat had only been accomplished six times in school history. OU has recorded five of the eight occurrences this year by Power Five teams (one each by Ole Miss, Ohio State and Oklahoma State).

♦ The Sooners are the first team in FBS history to record at least 500 yards of offense in nine regular season conference games.

♦ At current per-game averages, OU is on pace to become the first FBS team to ever produce a 4,000-yard passer (Kyler Murray has 3,674), at least two 1,000-yard rushers (Kennedy Brooks has 993, Trey Sermon has 863 and Kyler Murray has 853) and at least two 1,000-yard receivers (Marquise Brown has 1,264 and CeeDee Lamb has 882).

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