Horns suffer familiar fate right out of gate
DALLAS— Mack Brown tried to call it an aberration. Getting blown out by an archrival was an indignity not to be tolerated, and his Texas Longhorns, proud and strong, would not stand for it again.
“That’s not who we are,” Brown said Saturday afternoon.
But the longer the current incarnation of the Red River rivalry lasts, the more it sure looks like them. Oklahoma’s laughably easy 63- 21 romp marked the second year in a row the Longhorns were humiliated at the Cotton Bowl, and the drubbings have begun to lose their shock value.
Of OU’s six most lopsided victories in its 107- game series against UT, four have now come against Brown. This time, the 13th- ranked Sooners ran roughshod over a Longhorns defense that continued its season- long aversion to tackling and suffocated a previously potent UT offense until it didn’tmatter anymore.
Brown, lamenting that his teamwas “outcoached” and “out- hit,” didn’t try to downplay the significance of the thrashing.
Start- to- finish drubbing
“It’s just unacceptable for Texas to lose like that to Oklahoma, much less anybody,” said Brown, who dropped to 6- 9 against OUand 5- 9 against Bob Stoops. “Especially two years in a row.”
But much like in last season’s 55- 17 blowout,
Oklahoma 63, Texas 21 the 15th- ranked Longhorns ( 4- 2, 1- 2 Big 12) played like they were hopelessly overmatched from the beginning. Less than sixminutes into the second quarter, they not only trailed 27- 2 on the scoreboard but had been outgained in total yardage 314- 14.
By the end of the game, that gap in total offense ballooned to 677- 289, and it was that close only because of two fourthquarter scoring drives led by UT backup quarterback CaseMcCoy. Starter David Ash, who went 13for- 29 with two interceptions in his most miserable outing of the season, left the game in the fourth quarter with an injury to his left ( non- throwing) wrist.
Brown called his team “inept offensively,” and few disagreed. OU ( 4- 1, 2- 1) kept the Longhorns from passing and bottled up UT runners who had routinely found wide spaces through the first five games.
“The lanes out there were quick and short,” said UT tailback Johnathan Gray, part of a ground game that managed just 74 yards on 23 carries. “It was kind of shocking, not moving the ball.”
Said Brown: “The offense wasn’t out there long enough to quit.”
UT defenders insisted they didn’t give up, either, but they certainly did little to slow the Sooners down. With Damien Williams rushing for 167 yards, Landry Jones passing for 321 yards and Blake Bell bulldozing his way to four touchdowns, OU found few sources of resistance and blew past them when they did.
Run defense nonexistent
“It’s a great feeling when you have everything going,” OU receiver Justin Brown said. “I don’t want to say you feel like you can’t be stopped, but you feel like everything is going right.”
On a 95- yard touchdown run in the first quarter, Williams simply raced around the right side of the line, put a move onMykkele Thompson and sauntered into the end zone. Later, Trey Millard picked up 73 yards by taking a screen pass and leaping over one defender while another missed a tackle.
“When you can’t stop the run, things get ugly real quick,” UT defensive end Alex Okafor said.
For the Longhorns, that ugliness meant a ninth consecutive loss to a team ranked in the Top 25. And Brown said he isn’t sure how his team will respond next Saturday against Baylor.
“You can’t tell week to week,” Brown said. “It’s sure not pretty today.”