Darrell K Royal-Texas Memorial Stadium produced noise on Saturday night that hasn’t been heard since 2003 — well at least sound associated with beating Kansas State.

Texas overpowered Coach Bill Synder’s Wildcats, beating Kansas State 31-21. The win gave Longhorn fans a reason to cheer after back-to-back losses the previous weeks.

“We ended it [the losing streak] and we plan to keep it that way,” senior quarterback Case McCoy said. “We had some adversity strike but we hung in there and got the win. It was great to see for all of us.”

Texas controlled the first half, scoring 17 points while only giving up seven. In his first full week as defensive coordinator, Greg Robinson led a defense that mimicked his 2004 Rose Bowl championship team, limiting missed tackles and stifling spurts of offensive momentum. Kansas State was unable to cross midfield until 2:06 left in the first half.

“I’m really proud of the guys,” head coach Mack Brown said. “We played a full 60 minutes. We overcame a lot of adversity and got the win. We’re 1-0 in the Big 12.”

The biggest challenge Texas faced was the loss of its starting quarterback. Texas’ medical staff didn’t clear Ash to play because he showed concussion-like symptoms — Ash missed the Ole Miss contest for the same reason last week. McCoy entered the game and managed the game well in his place.

Despite the injury, Texas looked like a different team than it did against BYU and Ole Miss, giving Brown the ability to breathe a bit after a turblent few weeks. 

“This is part of the team I expected to see coming into this season,” Brown said. “ I expect to see for the rest of the year. This can be a really good team.”

Texas produced 452 yards total offense on 81 plays. The Longhorns showed balance, as 227 of those yards came on the ground while 225 came through the air.

Robinson’s defense gave up 390 total yards with only 115 of those coming off the run, an area Texas had difficulty stopping this season. The 115 yards represents the lowest number of rushing yards allowed by Texas since the first week of the season. 

“It was so much different, unbelievably different really [the feeling from the past two weeks],” running back Malcolm Brown said. “The past two weeks have been frustrating. Now, we just want to keep on keeping on. We had a great game tonight. We’ll celebrate this for a day and then go onto the next one.”