Texas Football: 3 best bowl games of the decade for Longhorns

3. 2012 Alamo Bowl

Result: 31-27 win over No. 15 Oregon State

The 2012 Alamo Bowl between the Texas football program and then No. 15 ranked Oregon State Beavers out of the PAC-12 North featured a battle between two teams that were both on the way down at the time. But the problem for Oregon State was that they haven’t really picked themselves up since this 2012 Alamo Bowl loss to the Longhorns.

Former Texas head coach Mack Brown saw his team get off to a very poor start against Oregon State in the Alamodome in San Antonio on Dec. 29, 2012. Oregon State held Texas to just three points in the first quarter, and no first downs. Those three-points for the Longhorns in the first quarter came thanks to a 40-yard field goal from kicker Nick Jordan.

However, the Longhorns started to get going in the second half when then starting quarterback David Ash took off. He tossed two touchdowns in the second half alone, and rushed for one more. Two of the Texas touchdowns in this game went to former star wide receiver Marquise Goodwin. One of those was a receiving touchdown, and the other was a rushing score.

Texas and Oregon State exchanged scores coming out of the locker room in the second half, but the Longhorns didn’t look back from there. In what was their best bowl win of the early 2010’s, the Longhorns were able to lock down on a top 15 opponent in Oregon State to give Brown his final postseason victory on the Forty Acres.