AUSTIN, Texas (AP) — Jonathon Brooks and balance. Texas has been using both to put teams away through the first half of the season.
Brooks rushed for 217 yards and two touchdowns as No. 3 Texas piled up more than 600 total yards in a 40-14 win over No. 24 Kansas, which lost standout quarterback Jalon Daniels in pregame warmups with back stiffness.
Quinn Ewers passed for 325 yards and ran 30 yards for the game’s first score. Texas (5-0, 2-0 Big 12) also got another standout game from its defense, which has surrendered just three touchdowns in the past three games.
Brooks, who was behind freshman C.J. Baxter on the depth chart when the season started, now has three consecutive 100-yard rushing games and a team high six touchdowns. He averages 7.0 yards per carry.
“He is a home run hitter for us right now,” Texas coach Steve Sarkisian.
Brooks’ first touchdown came on a 54-yard ru n. His second came after Texas recovered a fourth-down fumble, putting the Longhorns ahead 26-14 late in the third quarter.
His only blemish Saturday was getting chased down from behind on a 67-yard run.
“That (defender) was fast,” Brooks said.
Texas finished with 336 yards rushing and 661 yards overall, and wore down Kansas (4-1, 1-1) in the second half. The Longhorns blew the game open in the fourth quarter with Ewer’s touchdown pass to Adonai Mitchell and the quarterback’s second touchdown run.
“We can run and pass,” Brooks said. “We just kept going back to (the run), breaking the other team’s will and being really physical.”
Sarkisian said Texas is gaining confidence it can win with any game plan.
“We keep talking about being versatile and finding different ways,” Sarkisian said. “Championship teams get better during the season, I think that’s something we’ve done.”
Kansas was hamstrung by the unexpected loss of Daniels, the preseason Big 12 offensive player of the year, who was with the team at the start of warmups. But he didn’t finish them, leaving the offense with backup Jason Bean. Kansas managed just 260 total yards.
“We tried to get him ready. We thought we could get him out there,” Kansas coach Lance Leipold said. “It is what it is …. We just never got in sync.”
Bean passed for 136 yards and a 58-yard touchdown to Trevor Wilson that pulled Kansas within six points early in the third quarter. But missing Daniels, the hero of Kansas’ upset win here in double-overtime in 2021, turned the Jayhawks heavily reliant on a running game that struggled.
