Snatching victory from the jaws of defeat after it tried to steal your blowout win

Five things on the Longhorns epic win and legendary defensive stand against Kansas State in Austin

1. A recipe for Perfect Saturday

   All Longhorn fans should want three things to happen every Saturday. In fact, it’s a requirement for fanhood. It’s frustratingly rare for all three things to happen at once and there have been many times over the past decade where it’s slipped through Texas fans’ fingers at the last second, lending us to doubt if we’d ever taste its sweet nectar again. It’s ephemeral, but the unlikely event of this confluence gives the Texas fan something beautiful, something to cherish - that something being Perfect Saturday.

   Of course, I’m talking about the elusive gameday in which Texas is victorious while our rivals Oklahoma and Texas A&M both lose.¹ Last Saturday, Longhorn fans were given perfection and I hope they drank deep of it when Texas stymied Kansas State, Oklahoma lost to Oklahoma State in the final Bedlam and the Aggies fell short against Ole Miss. Texas and Oklahoma State now control their own destinies in the Big 12² and though the Longhorns might not get the vengeance they crave against Oklahoma on the field, it’ll have to come in the form of schadenfreude instead…I guess that will work too. It doesn’t matter how the metaphorical sausage is made on Perfect Saturday, whether there were goal line stands in overtime, missed extra points, blocked kicks or muggings of Drake Stoops where Big 12 referees turned a blind eye. You never look Perfect Saturday in the mouth. You simply thank it for coming and tell it not to be a stranger.

   

2. Two-Faced

   Texas showed both of its personalities under Steve Sarkisian against Kansas State: the dominant and the bumbling. The Longhorns remind me of a basketball team that lives and dies by three pointers, their points come from distance and in bunches where they go scorched earth on their opponent, but they’re also capable of head-scratching offensive droughts. Granted, if Quinn Ewers had been healthy then the Longhorns don’t have the inexplicable turnovers and missed throws that young Maalik Murphy committed after his hot start and they probably win going away with Xavier Worthy matching AD Mitchell’s performance. But besides Alabama, Texas still hasn’t played a complete game from start to finish, unless you want to count the win over Baylor which saw a baffling performance on special teams. The optimist in me says the Longhorns’ best football is STILL in front of them, but the pessimist says this is just who this team is. They’ll build huge leads and blow them, largely due to their mounting injuries and continued redzone struggles.

3. More Uncomplementary Football

   I’d never heard the term “Complementary Football” until Steve Sarkisian used it early in his Texas tenure. He’s not the inventor of it and it isn’t a novel concept, but as someone who grew up on the Mike Leach Air Raid, where relentless offensive output is paramount, it’s a different style of approaching a football game. For the uninitiated, let’s take a trip back to Geometry. First, the Wikipedia definition: complementary football states the performance, or lack thereof, in one of the three phases of the game by a team can subsequently alter the game's flow in the following possessions, so the three units of the team must operate in synergy as a collective for the best chance to win. My definition of it: see the strip sack by Ethan Burke against Kansas State that occurred after a great Ryan Sanborn punt pinned the Wildcats deep. The turnover immediately led to Jonathon Brooks scoring a short touchdown. In that sequence we saw special teams, the defense and offense work in tandem to achieve a result.

   

   I outlined Sark’s redzone struggles last week, hoping that writing 1,000 words on them interspersed with revealing my own shortcomings would serve as some sort of reverse jinx, but they continued against the Wildcats. Sark’s greed or insecurity in the redzone flies in the face of his prescribed theory of managing a game and read more like UNcomplementary football. My definition of it: up 17-0 in the second quarter, Texas special teams got a great return into Kansas State territory and then marched to the redzone where they were stifled. Sark sent out Savion Red for a fourth and short and Texas didn’t convert. Sark made this decision in a game where the Wildcats were struggling to gain a first down. Texas could have kicked the field goal instead of going for it on fourth down and gone up 20-0, but Sark didn’t take the points (he never takes the points). A possession before, Maalik Murphy had thrown his first interception of the game where he floated the ball up to four Wildcat defenders after Johntay Cook fell to the ground. He wasn’t good the rest of the game and seemed to lack confidence. Therefore, after that rough first pick when Murphy showed yet again that he's a young quarterback who is capable of committing terrible turnovers, why not kick and go up 20? Sarkisian would have let his quarterback feel like he led a scoring drive after throwing an interception and then the Longhorns are essentially daring a fledgling Kansas State offense to score 21 when they have no answer against your defense and also can’t stop Brooks or CJ Baxter. It’s a failure by the head coach, the offensive play caller and it’s far from complementary.

   

4. The Stop

   The blown lead, the breaks, the referees, none of it matters now. All that matters is The Stop. When Byron Murphy’s destruction of the Wildcat offensive line and an assist from Barryn Sorrell brought Will Howard to the ground, the cannon fired and the Longhorns rushed the field and in the euphoria I naturally kicked the seat in front of me like I was Bert Auburn and possibly fractured my foot before turning to my resident Good Luck Guy (who I invite to big games) and proceeded to give him six punches to his chest. Why? A stop like that makes you feel invincible even if you were inches away from mortality giving you a rude awakening.

   I have no idea why Chris Klieman went for it on fourth down when Texas could accomplish nothing offensively and had been unable to gain a first down at the end of the game or in overtime, but I’ll take it. I’ve been to some great games at DKR in my lifetime: Vince Young’s incredible comeback against Oklahoma State, Colt McCoy’s masterclasses against Missouri and OSU in 2008, Texas is Back against Notre Dame and plenty of dramatic losses, but Saturday was by far the best ending I’ve ever seen in Austin. Texas is a flawed team, but they are a good team and they’re tough. There’s a fortitude in the ability to win ugly and this Texas team can do it.

   

5. An ode to T’Vondre and Byron

   Texas owes the victory to their monsters in the middle of the defensive line, Byron Murphy and T’Vondre Sweat. Behind the defensive line, the Longhorns held a vaunted K-State rushing attack to 33 yards and made the Wildcat offense one dimensional. Both players were recruited by Tom Herman (credit where it’s due), but were developed and unleashed as game-wreckers by Pete Kwiatkowski and Bo Davis. Sweat has ruined countless opposition plans this season and though it was Murphy who came up with the critical pressure on Howard on the last play, Sweat blew up Kansas State’s prior trips to the redzone and came up with a critical pass breakup on second down of the final sequence.

   

   Sweat is Texas’ most valuable player this season and the best player in the Big 12, I won’t hear an argument for anyone else. Former three star recruits like Sweat and Murphy, along with linebacker Jaylan Ford and nickel Jahdae Barron, are the epitome of player development in Sarkisian’s program, and they’re also playmakers, something Texas has sorely lacked for a long time. They’ve all grabbed hold of the opportunity to be great and their football careers will be long because of it. Most importantly for us fans, they’ve all made plays to cement their status as Longhorn legends.

1. My wife’s family is from Tyler, Texas and when you pull into my in-laws’ neighborhood, you’ll pass a house on the corner that always has Oklahoma and Texas A&M inflatables up during football season. I don’t know what went wrong in this family’s life that led them so far into the darkness, but there’s no saving them now and I have no choice but to root for their demise. So, when we get Perfect Saturday, I like to imagine that house on their Black Saturday with all the lights off and tears rolling down the owners’ faces as they go to sleep.

2. More purple this weekend for the Longhorns, as they travel to Fort Worth at night to face another long time foe for the last time. If Quinn Ewers returns, things will look better for the Horns, but if not, then I hope Murphy has learned something about protecting the ball during his last two starts. Texas is 0-3 all time against Sonny Dykes and I’m worried that trend could continue. Shit, why did I just gloat so much about Perfect Saturday? TCU 22 Texas 20

Editor’s note: The joke about TCU fans still being angry they couldn’t get into Texas, yet were too prideful to go to college in San Marcos has been deleted.