DALLAS — Texas football blew the doors off Oklahoma two years ago, but Saturday’s 34-3 shellacking at the Cotton Bowl felt different.

The Horns haven’t arrived just yet but the expectations are so much larger than at any time during the Steve Sarkisian era.

Buoyed by the program’s stingiest defense in nearly 50 years, the top-ranked Longhorns feasted on a tasty Sooner morsel but they are after bigger game in 2024. A win over the Oklahoma Sooners is cause for celebration but the Horns, to a man, wore the look of a team that has history on its mind.

They want it all.

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Earning a Corny Dog

In many ways, this beatdown was even more impressive than the 49-0 win two seasons ago because the Horns spoke like a team that expected to hand Oklahoma hat and wear the Golden Hat back to the 512.

Speaking of morsels, coach Steve Sarkisian strode into the interview room with a State Fair staple held up to his mouth.

“I got my Corny Dog, y'all!” he bellowed to reporters.

So how was it?

“It’s amazing,” he answered.

But no way was it tastier than the victory he authored. That said, the postgame celebration, while joyous, didn’t have the visible outpouring we witnessed after the 2022 beatdown Texas administered — one season after they blew a 28-7 lead and lost 55-48 as OU freshman quarterback Caleb Williams introduced himself to the nation.

“Two years ago when we won the Golden Hat, you might have thought we won the Super Bowl,” Sarkisian said. “This year, was like, ‘OK, we got the Golden Hat back. Alright, let's put it in the trophy case. Let's keep going.’ So I think that's the mentality of our team.”

Quinn Ewers is the first to say he didn’t play his best after missing the last two games with an abdominal strain. He threw for 199 yards and a touchdown — he rushed for another — but threw a pick and missed throws he can normally make during REM sleep. It mattered little because the boys on the other side of the ball had his back and then some.

They made promising quarterback Michael Hawkins Jr. the true freshman that he is and forced two turnovers. The Horns actually showed they're human by trailing for the first time this season, but no one on the east sideline believed there was any danger afoot. It’s a veteran ballclub borne of past struggles and eager to convert those hard lessons into a league title in their SEC debut and perhaps even more the way things are looking.

Texas smashed Oklahoma.

Then Texas smashed Oklahoma again.

The scariest part for future opponents, including Georgia, which had a 41-31 tussle with Mississippi State to set up the first UT-UGA meeting since Bevo nearly crushed the Bulldogs at the 2019 Sugar Bowl.

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The defense made the plays that mattered

Coaches always talk about sudden-change defense, and Texas got its taste after Ewers threw an interception on the opening drive for the second straight Oklahoma game.

The Sooners missed a field goal and missed their opportunity to get out front as Texas totaled just 15 yards in the opening quarter, easily the offense’s worst 15 minutes of the season.

Undaunted, the defense played the type of ball we’ve become accustomed to watching.

The Sooners registered just 237 yards against a stern 11 led by sophomore sensation Anthony Hill, Jr. The middle linebacker showed he has clearly been listening to his mentor Derrick Johnson as evidenced by his punching of the ball after Hawkins scrambled for positive yardage in final two minutes of the first half.

In a span of 19 seconds, the Longhorns halted two drive with two fumble recoveries — Vernon Broughton recovered Hill’s dislodge while Derrick Williams Jr. had the other off his own strip — and turned one into seven points.

The 21-0 run in the second quarter made the second half a mere formality.

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The Longhorns have allowed 38 points through six games, which is the stingiest piece of defense to start a season since defensive coordinator Leon Fuller’s 1977 team that allowed 44 points in its 6-0 start. That squad, which was the first under Fred Akers, who took over for the legendary Darrell Royal, allowed 114 points behind stalwarts Steve McMichael and Brad Shearer. The Horns won the Southwest Conference and beat Oklahoma 13-6 en route to an 11-0 regular season before losing 38-10 to Joe Montana and Notre Dame in the Cotton Bowl.

The Sark Train is rolling downhill, with all steam and no brakes. After going 11-11 in his first 22 games, the Horns improved to 20-3 in their last 22.

If the college football world wants further proof that the Longhorns are the team to beat at the midway point of the season, just ask the Sooners. Oklahoma was drilled into the Cotton Bowl surface by a Texas defense that summoned the past dominance of Longhorn forefathers McMichael, Tommy Nobis, Kenneth Sims, Derrick Johnson, Michael Huff and many others who were smiling from their homes and above.

'Trying to be legendary'

Oklahoma coach Brent Venables called the Longhorns a complete team in a kindly worded understatement. Sarkisian is at the controls of college football’s deepest, most balanced team the most convincing proof came on a day when Ewers wasn’t at his best.

“The thing I love about our defense is it’s not about one or two guys. There are 11 guys,” said Sarkisian who added communication has been a key force in this group’s improvement from the 2023 unit that ranked ninth in the nation but isn’t as sturdy as the nation’s current No. 7 group.

The final score was identical to Texas’ win in 1998 when eventual Heisman Trophy winner Ricky Williams took center stage with 139 yards and a pair of touchdowns — but the defense not so quietly held the Sooners to 197 yards of offense and a single field goal.

Spring ahead 26 years to the final seconds of a game whose result was all but decided but there was little bit left of business left on the field. Most of the Sooner fans were beating a hasty retreat to the exit but the orange sections were still jam packed and cheering because the Sooners were six yards away from their first touchdown of the day.

With several starters still in the game, including defensive back Jahdae Barron and linebacker David Gbenda, the Horns forced Hawkins into three incompletions to keep the Sooners out of the zone for the second time in the last three meetings.

“We always talk about the standard is the standard,” said safety Michael Taaffe who had one of his team’s five sacks. “We have a standard and that’s to keep our opponent out of the paint and that's what we preach every single day. That's what we live by. It feels good as a defense to know that they never scored a touchdown. And so no matter if it's 50-0 or it's 34-3, the standard’s the standard and that’s how we’re going to play.”

The Sooners were an important notch in Texas’ belt but there is a feeling that bigger things await the most complete squad since the 2008 team that was arguably Mack Brown’s second-best at Texas.

“We’re on a mission,” said defensive end Barryn Sorrell. “We’ve been preaching it each week. It’s not just one game that’s going to get us to our goal. We’re trying to be legendary.”

They sure looked that way Saturday.

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This article originally appeared on Austin American-Statesman: Golden: Texas smokes Oklahoma behind best defense in nearly 50 years