John Mateer gets crowning moment as OU football upsets Arch Manning, Texas | Report card

DALLAS — Tate Sandell walked it off, drilling a 47-yard field goal worthy of the Golden Hat.

OU topped No. 1 Texas 27-24 on Saturday at the Cotton Bowl, reclaiming supremacy in a rivalry that Texas had thus far owned in the Brent Venables/Steve Sarkisian era.

Let’s get to the grades:

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John Mateer: A-

The Sooner quarterback played his best game of the season.

Now, the bar wasn’t all that high considering Mateer’s struggles in the first month of the season, but he avoided his biggest buggaboo: turnovers.

He fumbled on the first possession of the game, and even though the Sooners recovered the ball, it was easy to wonder if that was a sign of things to come for the turnover-prone Mateer.

But he didn’t put the ball on the ground again.

And he didn’t throw any highly interceptable passes either.

He played turnover-free football, which was huge. Mateer threw for 155 yards on 18-of-26 passing, and while he didn’t run it all that well even if you take away his sacked yards — 13 rushing yards on nine carries, sans the sacks — he had some tough yards when they were needed.

But again, not having any turnovers was the best part of Mateer’s day. While Texas quarterback Arch Manning had two, and both resulted in OU points, Mateer held onto the ball.

— Jenni Carlson

Lloyd Avant: A

Given the state of OU’s run game — and all-around offensive woes — Lloyd Avant’s 72 rushing yards felt massive. His 42-yard run early in the third quarter was OU’s longest play of the day and longest rush of the season.

There wasn’t much going outside of that. OU’s other two backs, Tory Blaylock and Jonathan Hatton Jr., combined for 19 yards on seven carries.

Avant, a Colorado State transfer from just outside of Houston in Humble, Texas, showed out in his home state.

— Joe Mussatto

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Run defense: A

Texas looked to have a huge advantage in the run game, both because of its running backs and because of its run defense.

But the OU run defense was spectacular.

The Sooners allowed the Longhorns only 122 yards on 32 carries, an average of 3.8 yards a carry. And the OU run defense was so stingy that it forced Texas to the air late in the game — and that’s when Manning made his fatal mistakes, a pair of interceptions.

No Texas tailback had more than 41 yards, and their longest run was 16 yards.

The Longhorns had no rushing touchdowns either.

— Jenni Carlson

Trystan Haynes: B

Trystan Haynes didn’t even play at Michigan, and here he was in the Cotton Bowl making his first-career start.

The former Carl Albert star got the nod in place of Eli Bowen, who suffered an injury during the bye week and didn’t play Saturday after being listed as a game-time decision.

The sophomore Haynes, appearing in only his fifth career game, had one of the toughest matchups possible opposite Texas’ Cam Coleman.

Haynes was involved on a busted coverage that resulted in Texas’ first touchdown, a 41-yard pass to Coleman, but Haynes made several plays before and after that. He had a pass breakup on Texas’ first drive and tackled Manning on a quarterback keeper on the next drive.

Haynes made seven tackles, which tied for second most on the team.

— Joe Mussatto

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Game flow: D-

Ugh. So many early reviews and long TV timeouts caused this game to slog along like traffic heading into the fairgrounds on Saturday morning.

Add in the fact that eight of the first nine drives were three-and-outs — and the other was a one-play drive that started and stopped with that long Texas touchdown pass — and the first half of this game was extremely choppy.

Things improved a bit in the second half, but still, when did TV timeouts start lasting over 3 minutes. Several were 3 minutes, 20 seconds.

That’s a game-flow killer.

— Jenni Carlson

OU fans: B+

Massive tip of the cap to Sooner fans (and really all fans) who were inside the Cotton Bowl on Saturday. It was hot. Really hot. Upper 80s and full middle-of-the-afternoon sun.

But the crimson side of the stadium had obvious pockets of burnt orange, much more than in recent memory.

Hey, we get it. The Sooner offense has been abysmal, and it’s difficult to commit to travel to Dallas and spend big bucks when you have a pretty good idea what’s going to happen. But in the future, OU fans, you can’t go saying Texas fans are fair-weather if your end of the stadium is infiltrated like it was Saturday.

— Jenni Carlson

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Fletcher’s Chocolate Corny Dog: B

Fletcher’s original Corny Dog, a State Fair of Texas delicacy, was born in 1942.

This year, Fletcher’s unveiled a sweet option: the Chocolate Corny Dog.

I happily handed Fletcher’s 15 coupons ($15): Eight for an original dog, which I slathered with mustard, and seven for the dessert dog.

Deputy sports editor Jacob Unruh and I split the chocolate dog, which isn’t at all a dog. Rather, a stick of milk chocolate fudge dipped in Fletcher’s iconic batter and deep fried.

The chocolate dog comes with a drizzle of vanilla icing, dyed yellow to look like mustard. And a side of raspberry compote, which was my favorite element.

It’s served in a paper tray, which is good. Because otherwise we would’ve been wearing it. The fudge doesn’t keep its shape. When you cut into the batter, the fudge seeps out like chocolate sauce. It’s an ooey gooey delight.

I gave it an 8.5 out of 10. Jacob, whose food reviews are as tough as his edits, gave it a 7.5. Still pretty good!

Fletcher’s Chocolate Corny Dog won a Big Tex Choice Award for best sweet — an honor almost as distinguished as our positive review.

— Joe Mussatto

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Pylon punctuality: F

The teams were ready to kick off, but something was missing. Some things.

Pylons.

Neither end zone was equipped with back pylons. Maybe the Cotton Bowl field staff had scouted these offenses and didn’t feel the need to outline the end zone.

Turns out, there were more points than expected.

Before kickoff, a couple of poor souls had to run back and forth from the tunnel to retrieve the orange sticks. Oops.

— Joe Mussatto

This article originally appeared on Oklahoman: John Mateer gets crowning moment as OU football upsets Arch Manning, Texas | Report card