Statement made: No. 7 Texas gets record game from Quinn Ewers in rout of Oklahoma State in Big 12 championship
ARLINGTON, Texas – No. 7 Texas completed its “Embrace the Hate Tour” with a bang as Quinn Ewers passed for a record 452 yards and four touchdowns and the Longhorns defense did the rest in a 49-21 shellacking of Oklahoma State on Saturday afternoon in the Big 12 Championship game.
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The Longhorns (12-1) captured their first Big 12 title since 2009 and successfully bookended their 27 seasons in the league with championships before an event record 84,523 fans at AT&T Stadium.
Texas will now wait to see if winning its final seven games, beating Alabama on the road and blowing out Oklahoma State in the title contest is enough to earn it a spot in the College Football Playoffs.
Ewers finished 35 of 46 and completed his first 12 passes of the game to eight different receivers on the way to passing for the most yards ever in a Big 12 Championship game. It was just the third 450-yard passing game in school history and first since Colt McCoy threw for 470 against UCF in 2009.
The Longhorns’ defense did not allow Oklahoma State (9-4) to broach the 200-yard barrier until the 10-minute mark of the fourth quarter. By that time Texas was ahead by five touchdowns. The Longhorns outgained Oklahoma State 622-281 in the victory.
There were plenty of stars in this win for Texas. Keilan Robinson ran for a team-high 75 yards and two second-half TDs on just four carries. Adonai Mitchell had 109 receiving yards and Ja’Tavion Sanders added 105, the latter on a team-best eight catches.
Oklahoma State quarterback Alan Bowman threw for 251 yards and three touchdowns but star running back Ollie Gordon, the Big 12’s offensive player of the year, managed only 34 yards on 13 carries.
The Longhorns came out on fire, wrong-footing Oklahoma State on all four snaps on its opening drive that was capped by a pass to Mitchell for a 10-yard TD at the 12:52 mark of the first quarter. It was Mitchell’s team-leading 10th scoring catch of the season.
Ewers connected with a wide-open Sanders on a flea-flicker play for a 24-yard TD and a 14-0 lead six and a half minutes into the game. The score came three snaps after a 54-yard catch and run by Xavier Worthy.
Oklahoma State responded with a 5-yard Bowman-to-Brennan Presley touchdown pass at the end of an eight-play, 75-yard march that cut the Texas lead to 14-7 with 5:36 to play in the first quarter.
The Longhorns countered with a nine-play, 77-yard drive that culminated with a 2-yard TD pass from Ewers to 362-pound defensive tackle T’Vondre Sweat, the Big 12’s defensive player of the year, with 1:41 to play in the opening quarter. Sweat then struck a Heisman pose in the end zone before being mobbed by his Texas teammates on the sideline.
After an interception by Texas’ Kitan Crawford at the UT 5, the Longhorns marched 95 yards in seven snaps to CJ Baxter’s 10-yard scoring run and a 28-7 lead with 11:40 to still play in the second quarter. The key play on the drive was a 62-yard bomb from Ewers to Mitchell on third down.
Ewers’ only bad pass of the first half – and just his second “incompletion” of the game – was picked off by the Cowboys’ Nickolas Martin and returned 27 yards to the UT 3. Two plays and an illegal motion penalty later Bowman passed to Rashon Owens for a 7-yard TD that culled the Texas lead to 28-14.
The Longhorns swung back, adding to its lead on an 8-yard pass from Ewers to Jaydon Blue with 2:11 to play to play before halftime.
Oklahoma State fumbled on its own 47, with the Longhorns’ Anthony Hill Jr. causing the miscue and Ethan Burke recovering it with 1:29 remaining. Texas drove into field goal range but Bert Auburn was wide left from 44 yards out, snapping a streak of 19 straight three-point kicks and leaving the Longhorns’ lead at 34-14 at the break.
Texas’ 422 yards of total offense was its high for a first half this season while the combined 49 points before halftime as a record in the conference championship game, supplanting the 46 combined first-half points scored by Texas and Colorado in the 2001 contest at Texas Stadium in Irving.
The Longhorns started the second half unimpressively on offense until Keilan Robinson ran 57 yards for a touchdown with 3:33 to build the Texas lead to 42-14. Ewers broke the record for passing yards in the title game when he started the drive with an eight-yard completion to Sanders.
Robinson added an 11-yard TD with 10:38 to play before Bowman and Owens hooked up again for a 3-yard scoring pass with 6:26 left. Texas ran out the final minutes as its fans feted their champions and the Longhorns’ ascendance back to the upper echelon of the college football world.
