At Least for One Game, Texas and Its Embattled Coach Return to Glory DALLAS - These were the Longhorns that Texas Coach Mack Brown had lauded, the recruits he had molded and sold as championship contenders this season, heaping expectations that they had not come close to meeting. At least until Saturday at Cotton Bowl Stadium, where Texas dismantled Oklahoma, 36-20, before 92,500 fans who had little reason to expect such an outcome. The Longhorns victory ended a three-game losing streak to rival Oklahoma and soothed some criticism of the embattled Brown, whose team improved to 4-2 and remained unbeaten in the Big 12 Conference at 3-0. 12-ranked Sooners dropped to 5-1 and 2-1 in the conference. Case McCoy finished 13 of 21 for 190 yards and 2 touchdowns, including a 38-yarder to Mike Davis for a 36-13 lead with 21 seconds left in the third quarter. Johnathan Gray rushed for 128 yards on 29 carries, and Malcolm Brown added 120 yards on 23 carries. One of McCoy's few mistakes came when dumped a screen pass into the hands of Oklahoma defensive end Geneo Grissom, who returned it 54 yards for a touchdown to give the Sooners hope with 10 minutes 7 seconds to play. But the Longhorns had already answered every challenge and countered Oklahoma's every move. Texas also scored a defensive touchdown, a 31-yard interception return by tackle Chris Whaley, and added a special teams score, an 85-yard punt return by Daje Johnson, who dodged an initial tackler, broke up the middle and cut to the left, giving the Longhorns a 29-13 lead midway through the third quarter. "Each part of the game, I thought they outplayed us," Sooners Coach Bob Stoops said. We didn't have hardly any big plays in any aspect. Oklahoma quarterback Blake Bell was 12 of 26 for 133 yards and threw 2 interceptions. These universities played for the 108th time Saturday, and with so much history, the video screen above the Cotton Bowl's south end zone constantly showed big moments from past games. But Texas had done little to uphold its end of the rivalry in recent years and had fallen far out of the national polls, which made the Longhorns" 23-10 halftime lead over the 12th-ranked Sooners all the more surprising. McCoy completed 10 of 15 passes for 143 yards in the first half, and his poise and flair resembled that of his older brother, Colt, who holds most of the Longhorns" passing records. McCoy's first touchdown pass came against an Oklahoma safety blitz, a 59-yard play that Marcus Johnson caught in stride after racing past defender Kass Everett for a 17-3 lead. Anthony Fera kicked field goals of 50 and 43 yards, the second coming as time expired in the second quarter after the Longhorns used only 58 seconds in a six-play, 54-yard drive. Oklahoma's lone touchdown was set up by Roy Finch's 73-yard kickoff return late in the first half. Damien Williams scored on a 3-yard run, cutting the Sooners" deficit to 20-10, but Oklahoma could not respond to an energized Longhorn defense that entered the game ranked 108th in the country. The Sooners managed only 108 yards in the first half, and Bell accounted for only 35 yards of that total on 5 of 12 passing with an interception. An Oklahoma defense that was ranked ninth nationally was shredded for 303 yards. This Red River Rivalry had become a romp for Oklahoma, which averaged 48.7 points in three consecutive victories. The past two beatings (55-17 and 63-21 last year) especially gnawed on the Longhorns as speculation on Brown's job security built toward Saturday's showdown. Brown's future at Texas might remain tenuous, but another blowout at the hands of the Sooners would probably have sealed his fate. The Longhorns showed up inspired, though, and quickly seized momentum on Chris Whaley's 31-yard interception return for a touchdown. Whaley, a defensive tackle, had dropped into pass coverage on the right side while safety Adrian Phillips raced from the left toward Bell on a blitz. The pressured unnerved Bell enough that he threw off balance directly to Whaley, who rumbled into the end zone and a 10-3 lead, the first time Texas had led Oklahoma after the first quarter since 2006. And it proved to be a lead the Longhorns would not surrender, perhaps reinjecting life into this rivalry and staving off some criticism of their coach.