The Big 12 is effectively out of the College Football Playoff, and Charlie Strong might have just saved his job.
Texas hit a 38-yard field goal with 46 seconds left and fended off a poorly drawn-up desperation drive by Baylor to knock off the eighth-ranked Bears, 35-34. The Longhorns kept pace with Baylor the entire game and even held 23-16 lead midway through the first half. They played like a team with nothing to lose.
MORE: Baylor-Texas box score
And that may have been the case, as the news surrounding their head coach losing his job builds up week after week, but Strong just pulled off one of the biggest wins of his career.
Texas is now 4-4 and is at .500 for just the third time in Strong's tenure, and a win over Baylor could be enough to cool down that hot seat. Remember last season when the Longhorns knocked off Oklahoma and Strong went crowdsurfing after the upset? Everyone was praising his coaching job and expecting big things from Strong at Texas. Same after the Longhorns beat Notre Dame at the beginning of the season. Both times, the Longhorns made the wins look like flukes.
But a third huge upset might just reflect the beginning of a progression upwards. Racking up 548 yards of offense on the No. 8 team in the country isn't just a fluke, and athletic director Mike Perrin might have to give serious consideration to giving Strong another year after Saturday's upset.
The Longhorns' upset of Baylor completed a double-whammy for the Big 12 on Saturday, as both unbeaten teams went down. Earlier in the day, Oklahoma State upset No. 10 West Virginia in a contest that wasn't ever that close. The Cowboys took a 20-10 lead at halftime and forced the Mountaineers into a few costly errors.
