The No.22 Texas Longhorns pulled away from the UTSA Roadrunners for a 41-20 win on Saturday at Darrell K Royal-Texas Memorial Stadium in Austin.
Bijan Robinson showed why he’s a Heisman candidate, rushing for 183 yards on 20 carries with three touchdowns, single-handedly surpassing UTSA’s 139 yards rushing. Robinson became the 20th Longhorn in program history to reach 2,000 career rushing yards in the game.
Roschon Johnson added 81 yards rushing and scored Texas’ first touchdown as the complement to Robinson in the Longhorns’ backfield. As a team, Texas rumbled for 298 yards on the ground.
Texas found itself down 17-7 in the second quarter but rallied to tie it at 17 by halftime. Robinson gave Texas a lead it would not relinquish with a 78-yard touchdown run on the Longhorns’ first possession out of halftime.
The 78-yarder is the longest of Robinson’s career and his second rushing touchdown of the game, marking his eighth career multi-touchdown game in 22 career outings.
The Roadrunners added a field goal late in the third quarter to cut their deficit to 24-20 before forcing a Texas punt on the ensuing possession.
UTSA was driving, but a pass by Frank Harris was tipped and fell into the arms of Texas’ Jahdae Barron who had nothing but open field in front of him as he returned it 44 yards for a touchdown to put the Longhorns up 31-20 just before the end of the third quarter.
The interception was the final dagger in the Roadrunners’ bid for an upset, as they were held scoreless for the entire fourth quarter. Meanwhile, Robinson scored his third touchdown on a 41-yard run to make it 38-20, putting the game even more out of reach with 9:36 left to play.
Beating Texas would have been the biggest win in the history of the UTSA football program, which has only existed since 2011. The Roadrunners got off to a great start, but the Longhorns running game eventually wore them down.
“I don’t think our team blinked for a second,” Texas coach Steve Sarkisian said. “We battled through the early start woes.”
Hudson Card got the start at quarterback for Texas (2-1) in place of the injured Quinn Ewers, who was knocked out of the Alabama game with an injury.
Card had his own injury, dealing with an ankle sprain during the week, and he was not announced as the starter until game time. He finished with 161 yards passing and one touchdown as Texas had 459 yards of offense.
Texas jumped into the AP Top 25 after its one-point loss a week earlier to then-No.1 Alabama. The Longhorns may have been riding high from the performance that garnered a ton of national respect as it quickly found itself down by 10.
Playing in front of 102,520 fans, the largest crowd in their 12-year history, the Roadrunners (1-2) took a 10-7 lead with 10 minutes remaining in the second quarter on a 2-yard TD run by Brenden Brady, set up by a pass interference penalty call against the Longhorns in the end zone.
Brady carried 21 times for 70 yards to lead the UTSA run game, while Frank Harris completed 24 of 35 passes for 222 yards and ran for 38 more to help the Roadrunners rack up 408 yards of offense.
On the kickoff following the Brady touchdown run, the Roadrunners caught everyone off guard with a surprise onside kick that UTSA’s Jimmori Robinson recovered. Two plays later, the Roadrunners used trickery again, with Brady taking a lateral and then throwing downfield to Zakhari Franklin for a 35-yard touchdown to help give the upset hopefuls a 17-7 lead.
But the good fortune ran out there for UTSA as Texas outscored them 34-3 the rest of the way.
Next up for Texas is to open Big 12 play and hit the road for the first time this season as they travel to face Texas Tech on September 24 for a 2:30 p.m. CT kickoff.