They're baaack: Texas pounds Oklahoma State for Big 12 title, makes its case for CFP bid

ARLINGTON — This spring, Texas football coach Steve Sarkisian taught a history lesson while speaking at a Houston luncheon.

While broaching the subject of UT's impending move to the Southeastern Conference, Sarkisian assured the fans in attendance that the Longhorns were more focused on the present than the future. He then noted that Texas had left a conference before and added that when UT exited the Southwest Conference after the 1995 season, its final act included a conference championship.

Nearly eight months after that Sarkisian speech, history repeated itself on Saturday.

The SEC-bound Longhorns ended their 27-year run in the Big 12 with a 49-21 win over No. 18 Oklahoma State in the conference championship game at AT&T Stadium. A founding member of the Big 12, Texas won the Big 12's first championship in 1996 and was crowned again in 2005 and 2009.

In addition to reestablishing itself as the Big 12's best for the first time in 14 years, Saturday's victory also kept Texas in contention for a spot in the College Football Playoff. Texas (12-1) will find out if it's among the four semifinalists on Sunday.

"We talked about making history, being legendary, and made that come to fruition," wide receiver Jordan Whittington said. "We spoke it into existence."

Texas scored a touchdown on each of its first four possession as Ewers threw three touchdown passes. His first was a run-of-the-mill 10-yard toss to receiver Adonai Mitchell, who has now scored 10 times this season.

Then Texas pulled out the razzle dazzle.

Facing a third down at the Oklahoma State 24, Texas ran a reverse as Ewers handed the football off to CJ Baxter, who then pitched it to Mitchell. Mitchell then pitched the ball back to Ewers, who found a wide-open Ja'Tavion Sanders downfield for an easy score.

On its next drive, Texas marched down to the Oklahoma State 2. With UT's jumbo package on the field, Ewers turned a play-action pass into a touchdown toss to T'Vondre Sweat, the team's 362-pound defensive tackle and the Big 12 Defensive Player of the Year. To celebrate the score, Sweat struck the Heisman pose.

Earlier in the week, a reporter had reminded Sweat that fellow defensive lineman Byron Murphy II had caught a touchdown pass this season and asked whether he felt Sarkisian needed to dial something up for him.

"Yeah," Sweat replied.

Texas led 21-7 after Sweat scored and that lead swelled to 21 points on Baxter's 10-yard run with 11:40 left in the second quarter. Oklahoma State (9-4) never got any closer than 14 points the rest of the day.

Texas entered halftime with a 35-14 lead. By that time, Ewers had already thrown for 354 yards and four touchdowns on 23-of-31 passing. Ahead of this weekend, the passing yardage record for the Big 12 championship game was Sam Bradford's 384 against Missouri in 2008. No title game participant had ever exceeded the four touchdown passes thrown by Kansas State's Ell Roberson in 2003 and Oklahoma's Baker Mayfield in 2017.

Ewers finished the game with 452 passing yards. That was the third-best total in school history.

"I feel like he was in a zone today," Whittington said. "He was unstoppable."

After Keilan Robinson ran for two second-half touchdowns, Texas put an exclamation point on its day. Fan favorite Arch Manning took the snap for the final kneel down. Star running back Jonathon Brooks, who tore the anterior cruciate ligament in his right knee, was able to be on the field for that last play.

During the postgame ceremony, Ewers was handed a championship belt by wrestling superstar and noted Texas fan The Undertaker. The Texas fans among a record-crowd of 84,523 then loudly booed Big 12 Commissioner Brett Yormark as he attempted to hand the championship trophy to Sarkisian. Yormark drew the ire of UT fans this summer when he was seen urging Texas Tech coach Joey McGuire to beat the Longhorns.

Then came the confetti.

Texas now must wait to see if its blowout victory convinced enough members of the College Football Playoff committee that the Longhorns belong in that postseason competition. Texas entered the day knowing that No. 5 Oregon (11-2) had lost to No. 3 Washington (13-0) in the Pac-12 finale and that No. 6 Ohio State (11-1) didn't reach a conference championship contest. No. 1 Georgia (12-0), No. 2 Michigan (12-0) and No. 4 Florida State (12-0) still had to play on Saturday when Sarkisian was asked in a postgame press conference to campaign for his team.

First, Sarkisian said he didn't want the discussion about the playoff to overshadow the championship that Texas won. That in itself is a huge accomplishment.

But Sarkisian said he believed the Longhorns have proven to be a versatile and deep team. He later pointed out that Texas beat bowl-eligible teams in Rice and Wyoming during the nonconference portion of its schedule and recorded a 34-24 win at No. 8 Alabama.

"This may be a little bullish of me saying, but we'll play anybody in the country. I'm not shying away from that part," Sarkisian said. "I feel very comfortable, if we get in this if we get into this tournament, we'll play anybody. We'll find out if we're good enough or not. But I feel like we have the team, the culture, the scheme and the versatility of this team to play against anybody."

In the immediate aftermath of the game, Sarkisian said he hadn't planned a watch party yet for Sunday's announcement. But regardless of whether Texas makes the playoff or not, the coach said that he'll consider this season to be a success.

"Without question. This season has been an amazing success and we're not done regardless, we're not done," Sarkisian said. "We went into the season to be champions and we are. These guys are wearing hats that says 'Champions' across the top and that says a lot."

This article originally appeared on Austin American-Statesman: Texas blows out Oklahoma State in Big 12 football championship game