By Steve Habel, Senior Contributing Writer
DALLAS, Texas — No one who was among the 92,300 fans at the venerable Cotton Bowl in Dallas Saturday ever will see as game as good as the one No. 19 Texas and seventh-ranked Oklahoma produced in the 113th playing of the Red River Showdown, a thrilling 48-45 victory by the Longhorns over their biggest rival.
If you were there on the sun-splashed afternoon as a fan for either team, you likely held your breath as Texas freshman Cameron Dicker kicked the game-winning field goal with nine seconds to play, saving the Longhorns from an Oklahoma comeback that was sudden, furious and frightening.
Dicker’s deciding three-pointer came at the end of a nine-play, 52-yard drive and rescued the Longhorns after they built a 21-point fourth-quarter lead and gave it all back in less than six minutes of the fourth quarter.
Texas quarterback Sam Ehlinger was the star of the game before Dicker’s kick, racking up 394 total yards and five touchdown. He threw for 314 yards and two scores, rushed for 72 and three touchdowns and even caught a pass for 8 yards.
The 48 points Texas that scored Saturday were the most ever by a Longhorn team in this series, which dates back to 1900 and predates Oklahoma’s statehood.
“We are excited to celebrate tonight,” Texas coach Tom Herman said. “This one, on the stat sheet, means a lot to our seniors and our university. But on the win-loss record, it doesn’t count any more than the win in Manhattan, Kan., and we know that.
“We’ve got some long-range goals that we needed to take this next step to get toward, and I’m happy we did.”
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The Longhorns looked to be comfortably in front after taking a 45-24 lead into the fourth quarter, but Oklahoma roared back to tie the game at 45.
First Sooners quarterback Kyler Murray hit Lee Morris on a 19-yard touchdown pass. Murray then used his feet to sprint untouched 67 yards for a touchdown that brought the Sooners to within 45-38. Trey Sermon tied the game with a 7-yard run with 2:38 to play, but the Sooners left too much time on the clock.
“We shot ourselves in the foot a little bit in the fourth quarter,” Herman said. “But there was zero negativity and bad body language. Everybody was positive, everybody knew we had plenty of time on the clock. As Sam (Ehlinger) said in the locker room, when you practice something, it shows up in games. I’m just tremendously proud of the way our guys prepared and handled the ebbs and flows of this game.”
Texas (5-1 overall, 3-0 in Big 12 play) won its fifth straight game. It was Ehlinger’s fifth straight game without an interception and the Longhorns’ third consecutive contest without a turnover.
The mercurial, über-dangerous Murray accounted for five touchdowns as well, four through the air and one on his scintillating scoring run that gave his team life late. He ended up with 396 total yards, including 304 passing.
“It wasn’t our best performance — we know that and we’re going to own it,” Oklahoma coach Lincoln Riley said. “We don’t back away from it. We still found a way to give ourselves a chance to win, and that’s what we do.
“Texas played a very good football game — that was one of the epic ones. That’s one people will keep talking about for years and years and years.”
Oklahoma opened the game with a six-play, 65-yard drive that showcased its explosiveness across the board. Murray hit Marquise Brown on a 4-yard touchdown pass to culminate the march, which featured four play of 12 yards or more.
Texas roared back down the field in response, needing just five plays to cover 75 yards, with the Longhorns’ score coming on a 2-yard jump pass from wide receiver Lil’Jordan Humphrey to Collin Johnson.
Brandon Jones’ interception of Murray and return to the OU 29-yard line set the table for a 44-yard field goal by Dicker that garnered the Longhorns a 10-17 lead with 5:58 to play in the first quarter. The Sooners answered with a 32-yard field goal by Austin Seibert on the first snap of the second quarter that tied the game at 10-10.
Ehlinger found Tre Watson out of the backfield on key back-to-back plays to send Texas back to the lead. First, the duo hooked up on a swing pass for a fourth-down conversion, and then followed it up with a 28-yard touchdown on a wheel route that made it 17-10 with 10:18 to play in the second quarter.
Texas’ eight-play, 75-yard drive on its ensuing possession was capped by a 9-yard Ehlinger run for a touchdown that expanded the Longhorns advantage to 24-10 with 5:12 to play before halftime.
Texas dominated the play in the trenches on the two second-quarter possessions, pushing the Sooners’ defense off the ball while clearing the way for Ingram’s run and for Ehlinger to have time in the pocket to go through his progressions.
Oklahoma got back into it with an 11-play, 82-yard drive that netted a 5-yard scoring pass from Murray to CeeDee Lamb and brought the Sooners to within 24-17 at halftime.
The Longhorns opened the second half with yet another sustained scoring march, moving 75 yards in 11 plays, and converting on fourth-and-2 and third-and-10 situations, to Ehlinger’s second touchdown run, this one from 5 yards out, to move the lead to 31-17.
The Sooners answered with a haymaker in a heavyweight fight. Murray, working with plenty of time against a three-man Texas rush, took advantage of a mistake in alignment that created a hole in the Longhorns secondary to find Brown on a 77-yard touchdown, reducing the Texas lead to 31-24. The pass play was the longest by Oklahoma in the 113 games played in this rivalry.
But Murray’s mistake on OU’s next position cost the Sooners. While being harassed in the backfield, he literally put the ball on the ground, and Texas’ Breckyn Hager snagged the fumble at the Sooners’ 23. Ehlinger rumbled home from 2 yards five snaps later and the Longhorns were back in front at 38-24.
The Longhorns domination continued with another grind-it-out march, this one a nine-play, 84-yard drive to build the lead to 45-24. Ehlinger continued his near-flawless play, hitting Humphrey on a 15-yard touchdown pass one snap after finding him on a 29-yard hookup to stake the Longhorns to a lead that did not holdup.
“It feels really good for these seniors who have been through a lot,” Herman said. “They’ve earned this. This was certainly not given to them, not bestowed upon them just by signing at The University of Texas. They had a pretty bumpy ride getting to this point.”
Texas returns to the field next Saturday afternoon when it hosts Baylor at Darrell K Royal-Texas Memorial Stadium.
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