No. 4 Texas admittedly wasn't its best against Wyoming, 'but we found a way to win'

After No. 4 Texas' 31-10 win over Wyoming on Saturday night at Royal-Memorial Stadium, Steve Sarkisian cited former Longhorns coach Mack Brown.

In a documentary about the 2005 national championship season at Texas, Brown conceded that a 25-22 win at Ohio State that September was a huge step for his program. The Longhorns were unsurprisingly euphoric, but it was Brown's job "to settle them back down."

Years later, Sarkisian felt he could relate. At this time a week ago, Texas was celebrating a 34-24 upset of Alabama, a victory that would thrust the Longhorns back into college football's spotlight. Fans were still congratulating the Longhorns on Saturday for that win in Tuscaloosa. "It's human nature to sometimes get distracted by that, and you lose sight of what's right in front of you," Sarkisian surmised.

On Saturday, Texas was flagged for a false start before its first offensive snap. "How can we go play at Alabama on the road and not have one false start, and then come home and have a false start on the first play of the game?" Sarkisian wondered aloud in his postgame press conference. Later in the first quarter, the defense had too many players on the field on one play. "How do you go to Alabama and not ever have one snap with 12 on the field, but then you come home and you have 12 on the field?" Sarkisian asked.

A heavy favorite ahead of the kickoff, Texas was unable to distance itself from Wyoming until the fourth quarter of its 21-point victory. But with the win, Texas is 3-0 for the first time since 2012. The Longhorns will open Big 12 play this weekend at Baylor.

"I think it was a good lesson learned for us," Sarkisian said. "I think at the end, I thought our guys really did a nice job of maintaining their cool, staying composed. We've talked a lot about our composure, our poise. I thought that that shined through tonight."

After three quarters, Texas found itself in a 10-10 tie. The Longhorns had mustered only 175 yards of offense, and their only touchdown was scored on offense by a defensive lineman. Quarterback Quinn Ewers had misfired a few times downfield and was nearly intercepted once in the end zone. Sarkisian criticized himself for two calls on the first drive of the second half that resulted in an incomplete pass and a sack that pushed UT out of field-goal range.

So in the fourth quarter, Texas just kept it simple.

Forty-eight seconds in, Xavier Worthy broke the tie with a 44-yard touchdown catch. Wyoming had a defender playing nearly 10 yards off of him on the first-down play, so Ewers threw a quick pass to the junior receiver. Worthy slipped an attempted tackle by Wyoming's Tyrecus Davis and scooted down the sideline and into the end zone.

Wyoming's decision to play off of Worthy wasn't a bad call. He had caught a 44-yard pass heaved by Ewers at Alabama the previous week.

"I already knew Quinn was going to throw it," Worthy said when asked what he thought when he saw so much space between himself and Davis. "It was just bound to happen."

On UT's next possession, Ewers scored on a 5-yard run. That touchdown capped a six-play drive that featured five rushes by Jonathon Brooks. One of those was a 61-yard gain. And two plays after Texas went up 24-10, it extended its lead to 21 points when safety Jerrin Thompson scored on a 27-yard interception return. Thompson's highlight came one week after he was stopped at the 5-yard line during an interception return in the Alabama game.

So in the blink of an eye — well, 6 minutes, 14 seconds to be exact — Texas turned a tie into a 21-point advantage.

"I think that's what championship teams do: They find a way to win when they're not at their best," Sarkisian said. "Tonight it's safe to say we were not at our best, but we found a way to win; we found a way to adapt; we found a way to stay composed, keep our composure and then start playing our style, our brand of football."

Wyoming opened the game with Evan Svoboda at quarterback instead of Andrew Peasley, who was injured. A third-year player who spent his freshman year at Snow College, Svoboda had never thrown a pass at the FBS level before the trip to Austin.

Svoboda went 2-for-3 on Wyoming's first drive, but he simply executed a handoff on the first big play of the evening. That handoff went to Northern Illinois transfer Harrison Waylee, who took off untouched on a 62-yard touchdown run. Texas hadn't allowed a rush longer than 20 yards over its first two games.

That run by Waylee accounted for 38% of Wyoming's offense in the first half and the Cowboys' only score. Texas held only a three-point lead at halftime, however.

The Longhorns scored their first-half touchdown at the end of a 17-play, 90-yard drive in which Sarkisian opened up his playbook. After opening the game with passes on eight of its first nine plays, Texas ran the football 11 times for 56 yards on that touchdown drive. Along the way, UT twice picked up a first down on a fourth-and-1 attempt when it used running back Savion Red as a wildcat quarterback.

The touchdown was scored when Byron Murphy II snagged a 1-yard pass from Ewers. Murphy is a 308-pound defensive lineman. Texas lined him up as a fullback in its jumbo package, and he was able to sneak into the end zone undetected as Ewers faked a handoff.

"We've had the play installed since last season. I've been waiting on my time. We've been practicing all last week, so when the opportunity presented itself, I was ready," said Murphy, who had joked with reporters in August that he grew up at the running back position until the ninth grade when he "ate myself out of the position."

Ewers had just 131 yards on 11-of-21 passing, but the quarterback did account for three touchdowns. Brooks turned his 21 carries into a career-high 164 yards.

Defensively, Jahdae Barron led Texas with nine tackles and one pass breakup. Barryn Sorrell recorded the Longhorns' only sack on a third-quarter play that turned a third down at the Texas 10 into a field-goal attempt.

This article originally appeared on Austin American-Statesman: Texas football team improves to 3-0 with 31-10 home win over Wyoming