In what was the most important possession of the game at the time, the Sooners sacked junior quarterback Colt McCoy before allowing a meaningless short completion and holding on a third down incompletion, forcing the Longhorns to punt the ball away on the first possession of the second half.

It seemed the Sooner defense would finally bear down on the Longhorns, who were led by McCoy’s 171 passing yards in the first half.

But the Sooners failed to take the game over. The OU offense scored again to lead 28-20 early in the third, but a series of events tilted the momentum in favor of the Texas offense.

The most debilitating setback occurred when junior middle linebacker Ryan Reynolds went down with a major knee injury.

“He tore his anterior cruciate ligament (ACL), so he’ll be finished for the year,” said head coach Bob Stoops. “It’s just really unfortunate.”

Reynolds was playing well, and had become the emotional leader of the defense.

In fact, against Baylor he was graded at 100, which defensive coordinator Brent Venables said is the first time in his career he has given a perfect grade.

“He is a [large] part of what we do,” Venables said. “He gets guys lined up in checks and things of that nature.”

The injury clearly took some life out of the defense, which all day was looking to string together back-to-back stops.

“A leader like he is and a rock like he is, it’s tough for us, it’s tough for any team to lose a player like Ryan,” said redshirt freshman linebacker Travis Lewis.

Lewis — who finished with a game-high 19 tackles — was also called for two controversial late hits when he touched UT quarterback Colt McCoy as he was running out of bounds.

In both cases, Lewis appeared to let up and even try to keep McCoy from falling. However, both fouls occurred along the Texas sideline, and both were called 15-yard personal fouls.

The defense never had the answer for McCoy and the Texas offense, allowing the Longhorns to respond whenever the OU offense was able to score.

“[McCoy is] good when he has his space, he throws it, and when he doesn’t, he does a good job of buying some time and making a little something [out of it],” Stoops said.

Texas amassed 438 yards of total offense, well over half of it through the air.

McCoy was aided by great play from wide receivers Jordan Shipley and Quan Cosby, who found holes in the OU secondary all day.

Shipley had 11 catches for 112 yards and a touchdown, and Cosby had nine receptions for 122 yards.

“I thought they did a great job, those guys executed really well and made some big plays,” Stoops said.

Stopping the run for the majority of the contest was the one and perhaps only bright spot for the defense.

One of the keys to the game for the Sooner defense was limiting McCoy’s running ability, and it accomplished that goal. In fact, OU held Texas to negative rushing yards in the first half.

The Longhorns finished with 161 rushing yards, but 62 of those came on a huge run late in the fourth quarter that sealed the game.

So, for a majority of the game, Texas couldn’t run the ball effectively against the Sooners.

But the inability to stop the pass and get any rhythm defensively was a killer throughout the contest.

“I feel they played a little inconsistent in the first half,” Venables said. “Texas did a nice job, they came in and did some things that were completely different, so it took a little time to get adjusted.”