By Steve Habel, Senior Editor
AUSTIN, Texas — The finish of Texas’ 40-34 double-overtime win Saturday over Kansas Statebefore a crowd of 90,462 at Darrell K Royal-Texas Memorial Stadium may come, once the smoke clears on the 2017 season, to epitomize the sticktoitiveness and dogged attitude that provides the turnaround for the Longhorns’ program.
Maligned and often miscast running back Chris Warren carried the pile two yards for the deciding touchdown as the Longhorns found a way to out-physical Kansas State and remain one of just two teams that heads to the second weekend in October undefeated in Big 12 Conference action.
Warren was stopped at the 3-yard line on his [s2If current_user_can(access_s2member_level2)]winning run, but kept his feet moving, pulling the pile of Texas and Kansas State players along for the ride before crossing the goal line.
After two holding penalties on their possession in the second overtime, the Wildcats’ Matthew McCrane’s 53-yard field goal attempt hit midway up the left upright and fell back into the end zone, allowing Texas (3-2 overall, 2-0 in Big 12 play) to win on its possession.
Maybe the Longhorns will ride with Warren and tenacious freshman quarterback Sam Ehlinger and make refusing to back down from any challenge a habit. That might be asking too much, but Texas has the look of a team thats coming together, that believes in itself and is learning how to win.
“Yeah — we are getting there,” Texas coach Tom Herman said after the win. “We have tasted what it feels like to win and to win close games. We’ve also tasted what it’s like to lose close ballgames. We are well aware of the differences in those tastes and the steps necessary to make sure that we are on the right end of that.”
Ehlinger hit former quarterback Jerrod Heard on a 25-yard touchdown pass on the first play of overtime to give Texas a 34-27 lead.
Kansas State backup quarterback Alex Delton, who entered the game late in the third quarter when starter Jesse Ertz was dinged up, then ran eight yards to the tying touchdown in the first overtime period, sending the game into a second extra period.
Delton led the Wildcats (3-2 overall, 1-1 in Big 12 play) to a game-tying drive that was capped by his 2-yard touchdown run with 3:37 to play in the third quarter. He then ran for 11, 13 and 22 yards and hit Dalton Schoen on a 23-yard pass on Kansas State’s ensuing possession, which ended in Matthew McCrane’s 33-yard field goal that staked the Wildcats to a 27-24 lead early in the fourth quarter.
Texas’ Joshua Rowland hit a 34-yard field goal with 1:37 remaining in regulation to tie the contest at 27 but missed a 45-yard attempt with two seconds remaining that would have won the game for the Longhorns in regulation.
Rowland’s tying kick came after he missed a 27-yard attempt on the Longhorns’ previous possession.
The Longhorns ended up running 91 plays (that included seven snaps in overtime) and racked up 546 yards of total offense to just 394 for the Wildcats.
“I told our players that Texas is a team that’s gotten better virtually every game of the season,” Kansas State coach Bill Snyder said. “This game all boiled down to execution and we didn’t really execute the things that we needed to do. There’s just a lot of things we need to do better.”
Ehlinger was named the starter an hour before game time and responded by passing for 380 yards and rushing for a team-high 107 yards on 20 carries. Texas’ three running backs — Warren, Porter and freshman Toneil Carter – carried a combined 20 times for 59 yards.
Reggie Hemphill-Mapps led the Longhorns with 12 catches for 121 yards. Ehlinger passed 51 times and hit of 30 of them with one interception — a miscue that came on the first play of the game — and was not sacked, even as he worked behind a patchwork offensive line.
McCrane line-drived a career-high 54-yard field goal to open the scoring before Ertz (224 yards passing) and Schoen, a sophomore walk-on, connected on touchdown passes of 82 and 12 yards in the first half for the Wildcats.
The first Ertz-to-Schoen touchdown pass came two snaps after UT’s Holton Hill was called for a pass interference penalty on third down that allowed Kansas State to move from its own 2 to the 17-yard line.
Texas countered with two 1-yard touchdown runs from Kyle Porter and an Ehlinger-to-Warren 33-yard scoring pass that allowed the Longhorns a 21-17 lead at halftime.
Rowland converted a 34-yard field goal on Texas’ first possession of the third quarter to expand the Longhorns’ advantage to 24-17.
Texas outgained K-State, 292-185, in the first half, and had a 103-16 edge on the ground. The Longhorns ran 43 plays in the first 30 minutes; they had 62 in the whole K-State game last year.
There are plenty of issues for Texas to work on as it gets ready to head to Dallas for next weekend’s Red River Rivalry game at the Cotton Bowl against Oklahoma, which was stunned at home Saturday by Iowa State and could plunge out of the Top 10.
“We’ve got good momentum, and there’s a positive energy [amongst the players],” Herman said. “I’ve had numerous players tell me, ‘Coach, this is as close as we’ve been as a team in a long, long time.’ That feels good.”
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