The Red River Showdown has been often one-sided in recent years. As expected, Oklahoma walked away from the Cotton Bowl with a win over Texas, but not as convincing as it should have been considering the team’s records. Baylor and TCU clashed heading in the battle of the undefeated teams, and walked away with a 61-58 win thanks to a crazy finish, which included scoring 24 points in the final 11 minutes of the game.

Texas fall to 2-4 this season, but managed to do a good job against the Sooners offense, holding them to just 232 yards. Oklahoma scored two touchdowns thanks to special teams and the defense, once returning a kick 91 yards (Alex Ross after a Texas field goal) and once after a Tyrone Swoopes interception, taken home Zack Sanchez for 43 yards. Texas weren’t really in the game from that point but made thing interesting in the fourth quarter, making it a five point game with 4:57 left to play

Oklahoma were held to just 103 rushing yards on 30 carries while Trevor Knight was unremarkable once again (maybe Katy Perry got in his head a bit too much) throwing for just 129 yards and a touchdown. But Texas continue to look abysmal under Charlie Strong when it comes to offense, and it’s probably going to take the rest of the season for them to figure out where this team is going under Swoopes, who was put in a tough position but isn’t making the most of the opportunity.

But while the high-profile game in Dallas didn’t really reach high levels of quality football and lost some its luster due to only one of the teams being ranked and not in the top 10 anyway, the clash of TCU (number nine going into the game) and Baylor (number 5 in the nation and defending Big 12 champions), which yielded 119 points, 1267 yards and one insane fourth quarter comeback, as Baylor erased a 21-point deficit with 24 points in the final 11 minutes of the game.

Baylor did turn the ball over three times, but they managed to put 782 yards of offense against the Horned Frogs, who are no longer undefeated following their tragic collapse in Waco. Bryce Petty was far from accurate and still managed to throw six touchdown passes to go with his two interceptions, completing just 28 of his 55 passes. He got a lot help from the running game as Shock Linwood ran for 178 yards.

Trevone Boykin wasn’t anything special for TCU, completing less than 50% of his passes. But TCU used special teams with a kickoff return touchdown and an interception turned into a pick-six to get 14 of their points. The offense can’t keep up with Baylor, especially not in McLane Stadium, but just like against Oklahoma last week, their ability to get creative and be unexpected at times was almost enough for a shocking win, which almost did get to happen.

Oklahoma still have three teams in the conference they need to leap over, who haven’t been beaten in the Big 12. For Baylor, they’re now one of the few elite in College Football; the undefeated bunch. But this kind of defense or rate of mistakes isn’t going to fly, especially not on tougher road games they have lined up, including their tricky visit to Morgantown and playing in Norman against Oklahoma. Go through that unscathed, and a second consecutive Big title seems more than possible. Chris Callahan isn’t going to save them every time.

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