Texas Football: 5 takeaways from the wild Red River win for the Longhorns

4. Todd Orlando is real

Any defensive coordinator that is able to give a head coach the level of Oklahoma’s Lincoln Riley trouble in terms of the defensive gameplan really means he’s prepared well. Second-year Texas defensive coordinator Todd Orlando had another stifling game against a high-powered Oklahoma offense.

Even dating back to his days with the Houston Cougars, Orlando gave the Oklahoma offense a lot of issues. That was back during the 2016 campaign when Oklahoma was still under the direction of former head coach Bob Stoops, and Riley was the offensive coordinator. Orlando is still giving Riley’s offenses some problems which is huge for Texas.

Texas did let up 45 points from the Sooners in this game, but three turnovers were very costly and helped the Horns pull off the upset victory. It was mainly the turnovers that sparked Texas to be able to put up some extra points on offense. Of the three Oklahoma turnovers, the Horns were able to turn them into 10 points.

The first pick came on a first quarter snag by junior safety Brandon Jones who read Murray like a book. That helped the Horns to gain the first lead of the day, and the team never really looked back from there. Texas would also draw a huge fumble from the Oklahoma offense later in the game that contributed to them hanging on for the three-point victory.