Inside Texas - Page 2 of 890 - The Inside Scoop on Longhorn Sports!

The Texas defense dominated a bad Rice offense early, allowing only two first downs and 56 yards of offense at the half. That 31-0 lead is exactly what Texas needed to play everyone, save some powder for OSU, and notch the kind of easy dominating win that had been a struggle in the early part of the Herman Era.

The Longhorns came out firing against an overmatched Rice defense, scoring touchdowns on their first four possessions on drives of 82, 90, 73 and 79 yards, respectively. When your first four drives yield >300 yards of offense and 28 on the scoreboard, the game is going to go a certain way if the Texas D shows up. The first drive really told the tale, as Texas converted three 3rd down situations on their way to the score, proving that even if Rice could inflict negative plays in the running game with shifting fronts and overloads (and Texas did a poor job getting out of a couple of bad runs early), the Longhorns could still convert based on Sam Ehlinger's play, OL pass blocking and better skill athletes.