Oklahoma Sooners vs Texas Longhorns: Full Player Stats From the Red River Rivalry

Man, this rivalry never disappoints. Every single year it’s the same story, huge crowd, split right down the middle at the Cotton Bowl, half wearing crimson, half wearing burnt orange. Genuinely one of the best atmospheres in college football, in my opinion. Nothing else quite matches it.

Let’s get into the numbers.

The Final Score, Quick Recap

Texas walked away with a 23-6 win over Oklahoma in the most recent Red River Rivalry matchup, played at the Cotton Bowl in Dallas. Unranked Texas going into that Saturday. Oklahoma ranked No. 6. Didn’t matter. Texas controlled it from start to finish, honestly.

Oklahoma entered the game at 5-1. Texas came in at 4-2, fresh off a tough loss the week before. Funny how rivalry games work like that sometimes, doesn’t matter what your record says walking in.

Texas kept hold of the Golden Hat trophy. That’s the prize both schools play for every year, and it stayed in Austin.

Quarterback Stats: Manning vs Mateer

This is usually where people’s eyes go first, and fair enough, quarterback play basically decided this game.

Arch Manning (Texas) had arguably his best game of the season. He completed 21 of 27 passes for 166 yards and a touchdown. Efficient, controlled, didn’t force anything. On third downs specifically, he was nearly perfect, converting the vast majority of his attempts to keep drives alive.

John Mateer (Oklahoma), on the other hand, had a rough one. 20 completions on 38 attempts, 202 passing yards, but three interceptions. Three. That’s the number that basically tells the whole story of Oklahoma’s offensive day. Mateer had actually just come back from hand surgery not long before this game too, which, in fairness, probably didn’t help matters.

I think the interceptions matter more than the completion count here, honestly. You can throw for decent yardage and still lose the turnover battle so badly it costs you the game. That’s exactly what happened.

Running Back Numbers

Quintrevion Wisner (Texas) was the workhorse of the day. 22 carries, 94 rushing yards, including a season-long run of 37 yards. He also caught five passes for another 35 yards. That’s a genuinely complete performance from a running back, contributing both on the ground and through the air.

Tate Blaylock (Oklahoma) managed 33 rushing yards on 11 carries. Not a bad per-carry average on paper, but Oklahoma’s overall ground game struggled badly as a team. The Sooners finished with just 48 total rushing yards on 30 carries across the whole roster. That’s rough. Genuinely rough for a team that usually wants to establish the run early.

Receiving Stats

Deuce Burks (Oklahoma) led all Sooners receivers with 64 yards on five catches. Solid individual output, even in a losing effort.

DeAndre Moore Jr. (Texas) caught three passes for 50 yards, including the go-ahead 12-yard touchdown reception in the third quarter. That score flipped the momentum of the entire game, honestly. Texas trailed 6-3 at halftime, then came out and took control almost immediately after the break.

Defensive Standouts

Defense won this game for Texas, plain and simple.

Malik Muhammad (Texas) picked off two passes, including one in the end zone right before halftime that Texas head coach Steve Sarkisian later called a genuine momentum-changer. He became the first Longhorn to record multiple interceptions in this rivalry game since 2016. That’s a notable stat on its own.

Colin Simmons (Texas) was disruptive up front, recording 2.5 sacks. That kind of pressure rattles a quarterback all game long, and it showed in Mateer’s turnovers.

On tackles, Michael Taaffe (Texas) led everyone with nine total tackles, seven of them solo. Kobie Daniels (Oklahoma) paced the Sooners defense with six tackles, four solo.

The Play That Sealed It

Worth mentioning on its own, honestly, because it basically ended any hope of an Oklahoma comeback. Ryan Niblett returned a punt 75 yards for a touchdown in the fourth quarter. Just like that, Texas went up two scores, and Oklahoma’s defense-and-special-teams battle was essentially over.

Special teams plays like that don’t show up in a quarterback’s stat line, but they absolutely decide games. This one certainly did.

Team Totals Worth Knowing

Zooming out from individual stats for a second, the team numbers tell their own story too:

• Total yards: Texas 302, Oklahoma 258
• Turnovers: Oklahoma 3, Texas 0
• 1st downs: Oklahoma 16, Texas 15
• 3rd down conversions: Texas 10-of-17, Oklahoma 6-of-17

That turnover gap right there? Three to zero. That’s basically the entire game summarized in one stat line. You can move the ball fine, like Oklahoma actually did in first downs, but if you’re handing possessions away three times against a defense that’s playing this well, you’re not winning that afternoon.

What This Means Going Forward

This loss dropped Oklahoma into a genuinely brutal stretch of schedule, with a run of ranked opponents lined up right after. Not exactly the recovery period a team wants following a rivalry loss like this one.

For Texas, it was the opposite, a much-needed bounce-back win that got them back into playoff conversation territory after a rough patch earlier in the season.

Final Thoughts

Stats don’t always capture the full emotion of a rivalry game like this, honestly, the noise, the tension, the way one big special-teams play can just deflate an entire stadium. But if you’re looking at the numbers specifically, it comes down to one simple thing: Texas took care of the football, Oklahoma didn’t, and that gap decided the game.

Same time next year, different storylines probably, but I’d bet the same electric atmosphere either way. That’s just what this rivalry does.

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