Texas Football: 3 reasons why the Longhorns can still win the Big 12

1) Why Texas football can win the Big 12: Oklahoma schools faltering

Oklahoma State does currently have the Big 12’s clearest path to both winning the conference and making it to the College Football Playoff. But they nearly slipped up in each of their first two wins of the season to date. The Tulsa Golden Hurricane were one or two drives away from pulling off the upset of Oklahoma State in Stillwater. And the West Virginia Mountaineers played the game closer than the final score would’ve indicated in their Big 12 opener against the Pokes.

Meanwhile, the rival Oklahoma Sooners did not do all that well over the course of their last two games either. Oklahoma started out their Big 12 slate by falling short in dramatic upset fashion at the hands of the Kansas State Wildcats two weeks ago. And head coach Lincoln Riley saw his Sooners follow that up by losing a second straight game over the weekend on the road against the Iowa State Cyclones, by the final score of 37-30.

Redshirt freshman quarterback Spencer Rattler can’t get the turnover bug under control when it matters most. He now has two picks on potential game-winning/game-tying drives in the fourth quarter for the Sooners. It was very much a deja vu moment for Oklahoma fans on that late pick from Rattler to seal the win for Iowa State.

Texas gets Oklahoma in the annual Red River Rivalry game next weekend. They are the slight underdogs at the outset of the week of practice. But a Texas-Oklahoma game that features a combined record of 3-3 (1-3 Big 12) doesn’t feel any sort of usual. Both of the Oklahoma schools do still feel prone to a team like Texas making a run down the stretch at a Big 12 Championship.