Football
ARLINGTON, Texas (AP) — Quinn Ewers set a career high by throwing for 452 yards with four touchdowns, one of those to 362-pound defensive tackle T’Vondre Sweat, and the seventh-ranked Texas Longhorns secured the 2023 Big 12 title with a 49-21 win over No. 18 Oklahoma State in the 2023 Dr Pepper Big 12 Football Championship.
UT (12-1) has now won four overall Big 12 football championship titles. They also won it in the league’s inaugural 1996 season, in 2005 when they were last national champs and in 2009 before playing in the BCS national championship game.
Keilan Robinson tiptoed the sideline on a 57-yard run for the first of his two touchdowns in the second half as Texas, the only team to beat Alabama entering Saturday, stayed in playoff contention.
Big 12 Commissioner Brett Yormark said Saturday that Texas would “certainly deserve consideration” for a playoff spot and the league would strongly support it.
With national rushing leader Ollie Gordon II, Oklahoma State (9-4) had won seven of eight games to get to its second Big 12 title game in three years. But Texas scored on its first four possessions, going ahead 28-7 on true freshman CJ Baxter’s 10-yard run early in the second quarter.
Cowboys quarterback Alan Bowman, who previously played at Texas Tech and Michigan, was 22-of-38 passing for 250 yards with two of his three touchdowns going to Rashod Owens.
Gordon came in averaging 137.1 yards per game overall — and 163 in conference games. The sophomore finished with only 34 yards on 13 carries against Sweat and the Big 12’s top rushing defense, which allowed only 85 yards on the ground during the regular season.
Ewers completed 35 of 46 passes and his touchdowns went to four different receivers, the biggest one being the finalist for the Outland Trophy that goes to the nation’s top lineman, offense or defense.
Sweat lined up as a tight end from the Cowboys two, and no defender followed him into the end zone, where the senior corralled the pass from Ewers in his belly for his first career catch, struck a Heisman Trophy pose and went on to a raucous celebration on the Texas sideline with the Longhorns up 21-7 late in the first quarter.
When Ewers got the wind knocked out of him and had to leave the field for one play late in the third quarter, he was replaced by Maalik Murphy instead of Arch Manning. Murphy and Manning both took snaps on the final drive for Texas over the final 6 1/2 minutes against Oklahoma State.
Postgame Notes
- Today’s total attendance of 84,523 was a Big 12 Championship game record. Previous record was 83,114 set in 2018 when Oklahoma beat Texas, 39-27.
- Texas quarterback Quinn Ewers was named the 2023 Dr Pepper Big 12 Championship Most Outstanding Player. The sophomore broke three Big 12 Championship records today after netting 458 total yards (452 passing, 6 rushing), throwing 35-for-46 with four touchdowns. He is now first all-time in yards gained (458), passing yards (452), completions (35) and ties for first in passing touchdowns (4) in the title game.
- Texas (35) and Oklahoma State (14) combined for 49 points in the first half, which is the most points scored in a half in a title game. The previous record was 46 by Colorado vs. Texas in the first half in 2001.