The No. 3 (5th seed) Texas football team rushed for 292 yards in a 38-24 victory over No. 16 (12th seed) Clemson in the College Football Playoff First Round in front of a crowd of 101,150 at Darrell K. Royal -Texas Memorial Stadium on Saturday.
Jaydon Blue rushed for 146 yard and Quintrevion Wisner recorded 110 yards rushing. Quinn Ewers completed his first eight passes and totaled 202 yards and one touchdown. Gunnar Helm led Texas in receiving with 77 yards on six catches.
After Clemson scored the opening touchdown of the game, the Longhorns came right back with a 12-play, 75-yard drive that ended with a 3-yard touchdown run by Quintrevion Wisner.
Texas started the second quarter forcing Clemson to punt and going 65 yards on all running plays with the exclamation point a 38-yard touchdown run by Jaydon Blue, for his 11th touchdown of the season.
The Longhorns third scoring drive of the game covered 82 yards on six plays with a key play being a 43-yard completion from Ewers to Matthew Golden. Wisner ended the drive with his second touchdown of the day, a 16-yard burst to the right side to put Texas up 21-7.
Barryn Sorrell broke up a Cade Klubnik pass and Colin Simmons intercepted it for the Longhorns 20thinterception of the season.
With under a minute left in the first half Ewers kept a Texas drive alive with an 11-yard run to the Clemson 26-yard line. Ewers found Gunnar Helm two plays later for a 19-yard touchdown to put Texas up 28-10 at the half.
Texas outscored Clemson 21-3 in the second quarter and responded to the Tigers opening touchdown drive with 21 unanswered points.
Clemson scored on a 7-yard pass play at the 11:43 mark of the fourth quarter to get to within seven at 31-24. On the second play of the ensuing drive Jaydon Blue took it down the left side for 77 yards and a Longhorns touchdown to put Texas up 38-24.
The Longhorns made a key defensive stand as they stopped Clemson at the 1-yard line on back-to-back plays to force a turnover on downs and hold on to their 38-24 lead.
UP NEXT
Texas will play in the Peach Bowl in Atlanta for the CFP quarterfinal on January 1, 2025 at 12:00 p.m. CT against Arizona State.