Texas Football: Second Half Surge Lifts Longhorns to Win over K-State

Texas rattles off 24 unanswered points to knock off the No. 16 Wildcats

All week Texas head coach Tom Herman talked about punching off the ropes. His team took it to heart on Saturday. 

After Kansas State rolled out to a 14-0 lead and looked like they might run away with it in Austin, the Longhorns rallied, scoring 24 straight and eventually kicking a game-winning field goal in the fourth quarter to seal a 27-24 win over the Wildcats. 

"Extremely proud of the win, but maybe -- not maybe, but definitely more importantly, the things that this crew has been through these last few weeks, to overcome what they overcame, it was special," Herman said. "I'm really proud of them."

Keaontay Ingram rushed for 139 yards and Sam Ehlinger passed for 263 and a score - nine for 110 to Devin Duvernay and seven for 110 to Collin Johnson - to help the Longhorns get back on track after dropping two of three. 

While the offense coming to life in the second half was a big part of the story, it was the much-maligned Texas defense that stole the show. After giving up 153 yards on the first two drives the Longhorns allowed just 151 for the next three and a half quarters, holding Kansas State to just 51 yards on the ground and sacking Skylar Thompson three times. 

The Wildcats had no first downs in the third quarter.

"I'd like to say it was some magic defense that we called," Herman said. "It wasn't. We played better on 1st and 2nd down to make those 3rd downs a lot longer. We executed at a much higher level. We did our jobs." 

While the Longhorns were getting stops, the offense was making the most of it. 

Ehlinger found Johnson on a 21-yard touchdown pass to cut the K-State lead in half at 14-7 with just over 12 minutes to go in the first half. After the break Keaontay Ingram streaked past the Wildcat defense for a 34-yard touchdown to tie the game. 

"He's a beast," Receiver Collin Johnson said of Ingram.  "I was like, 'man you're running angry. What did someone do to you?'

Cameron Dicker kicked a 36-yard field goal to give Texas its first lead of the game with 9:02 to go in the third, then a 15-yard Ingram touchdown made it a two-score game at 24-14. 

Kansas State took the ensuing kickoff back to the house and got a 45-yard field goal in the fourth quarter to tie it up, but the Longhorns had one drive left in them, moving the ball all the way to the Kansas State one-yard line and milking the last six minutes off the clock. 

"we pride ourselves on our clock management," Herman said. "I think you've seen that time and time again."

Dicker's 26-yarder gave Texas a 27-24 win and kept its Big 12 title hopes alive.