Last season in Dallas, Oklahoma beat Texas 53-43 in overtime and that led to the Sooners eventually winning a sixth straight Big 12 Conference championship.

This year, No. 5 OU (5-0, 2-0 in the Big 12) has a chance to make strides not only in the Big 12 but also toward the College Football Playoff.

Texas (4-1, 2-0) stands in the way.

The game will be played in the Cotton Bowl. Kickoff is 11 a.m. and on ABC.

Last year, redshirt freshman Spencer Rattler passed for three touchdowns – two in came in overtime periods. Former Texas quarterback Sam Ehlinger, who graduated, had a career-high four touchdowns but it wasn’t enough as the Sooners prevailed.

This year, Rattler has thrown for 1,260 yards, 10 touchdowns (with four interceptions) for a 76% completion rate. Running back Kennedy Brooks, who sat out 2020 due to the Chinese coronavirus, leads OU with 318 yards rushing (5.9 yards per carry average) and Eric Gray is close behind with 245 yards (5 yards per carry). Wideout Marvin Mims has 14 catches for 264 yards (18.9 yards per catch average). Fifteen Sooners have caught a pass so far this season.

No. 21 Texas’ running back Bijan Robinson has rushed 105 times for 652 yards (6.2 yard average) and seven scores. The Longhorns have started two quarterbacks. Casey Thompson has thrown for 707 yards with a 71.1% completion rate with nine touchdowns. Hudson Card has thrown for 314 yards, hitting 61.5% with two scores.

Texas wideout Jordan Whittington leads the Longhorns with 21 catches for 324 yards and three TDs.

Texas has wins over Louisiana, Rice, Texas Tech and TCU. They lost to Arkansas in Fayetteville. Last Saturday, Texas edged TCU 32-27 in Ft. Worth.

OU has beaten Tulane, Western Carolina, Nebraska, West Virginia and last Saturday, the Sooners beat Kansas State, 37-31, in Manhattan.

OU coach Lincoln Riley was happy with the road win.

“For this group this year, not comparing to any other group any year, this was the best, most complete game we’ve played,” Riley said. “We feel we can play a whole lot better. But I thought we got some run game established. We got into a little bit more of a rhythm.”

Rattler finished 22-of-25 passing for 243 yards with two touchdowns and one interception.

“He’s played at this level certainly during some good, strong stretches during the season. I think it was his most complete game,” Riley said. “He did a better job of starting fast and maintaining it the whole way through. Mentally was just into it the whole way. He did a nice job; he played well.”

In the past game and a half, Rattler has hit 90% of his passes (37 of 41).

Tulane, Nebraska, West Virginia and K-State have tried to defeat OU by holding on to the ball for long drives and denying the Sooner offense.

That strategy hasn’t paid off.

“Every drive to us this game was important. We came into this game working on our consistency every drive. It just happened to be these two drives where we got into a two-minute situation,” Rattler said. “Had to drive down again and prove we could do it. Set Gabe up to kick it right through. Put us up by three. Coming after halftime, we knew we wanted to score. Knew we needed to score, and that’s what we did.”

“After that first half and even throughout that first half, how mentally are we going to handle that? Man, you don’t think you’re going to get anything less than four possessions in a half; all of a sudden we have three,” Riley said. “I thought it showed some real mental toughness on our offensive guys’ part. We played complete ball against a good group.”

KSU tailback Duece Vaughn, who helped engineer upsets of OU in the last two years, did not rush for 100 yards against the Sooners last Saturday.

“I assure you we have someone responsible for the tailback, and yet on national television it appears we’re not a very well-coached unit,” OU defensive coordinator Alex Grinch said. “In any event I’m thrilled. Find a way. Find a way. I’ve got a big smile. You just can’t see it. Knowing we’re a 5-0 football team and I’ve talked about it before.

“It’s a one-week evaluation. It was good enough to win today. Our chief goal is to hold them to one less point than the offense does, and we got that done. And then we’ve got to get a whole lot better.”

“He is a tough guy, you only see that many guys of that sort running the ball,” said OU linebacker Nik Bonitto. “We really had to get low and try and tackle him. He is also a guy that can make you miss in open space. It was really more of a game plan to just rally to the ball because it’s football you know, he is going to make somebody miss and as long as you are running to the ball and everyone is trying to get there, we did a really good job of rallying to them.”

OU’s offensive, which drew criticism in the win over West Virginia, played better against the Wildcats and it showed.

“Their mentality was right all week, they knew they wanted to play a better game coming into this game,” said Rattler. “They made it easy for KB (Kennedy Brooks) and Eric (Gray). Stepping up and running and being able to sit there and throw the ball around. They did a great job with their mentality. It was just right in this game.”

Rattler was confidence in the preparation for Kansas State.

“We took a step of where we wanted to go and had a statement game,” Rattler said. “We didn’t play as near as well as we should have. We left a lot of money on the table and we are going to clean it up.”

OU kicker Gabe Brkic made field goals of 27, 40 and 47 yards against K-State. He is now 11 for 13 on field goals this season. He is 18 for 18 on PATs this season and 120 of 120 in his career.

OU has now won 13 games in a row – the second longest streak in the nation.