AUSTIN, Texas -- De'Arrius Howard charged to the few sections of red-clad fans amid all the burnt orange, grabbed a giant state of Arkansas flag and waved it proudly. Then he went into the end zone, plucked some orange-painted grass and tossed it aside.
Arkansas' Cedric Cobbs leads the SEC in rushing.
The Razorbacks had just beaten their most hated rival on its home turf, a place they hadn't been in 13 years. And, even if most players weren't born when the Arkansas-Texas rivalry was in its heyday, they knew what this meant to everyone back home.
"It's the greatest game there is in the world," said coach Houston Nutt, unable to stop smiling following a 38-28 upset victory Saturday over the sixth-ranked Longhorns. "It's a special feeling to beat Texas."
Matt Jones moved the Razorbacks (2-0) through the air and on the ground, keeping them in control throughout as Arkansas beat its highest-ranked foe since 1999 and ended a 20-game home winning streak for the Longhorns (1-1).
"This team has worked too hard in the summer, in two-a-days, to let everything go down the drain in one ballgame," Texas receiver Roy Williams said. "We just want to continue what we're doing and try getting as many Ws as we can."
The game -- the first between the schools in Austin since 1990 and their first in the regular season since 1991, Arkansas' last year in the Southwest Conference -- opened with a midfield handshake by former coaches Darrell Royal of Texas and Frank Broyles of Arkansas.
Then the Razorbacks, expected to be in the middle of the pack in the SEC West, played with the precision of one of their storied games against the Longhorns from the 1960s and '70s.
Arkansas answered a long, game-opening TD drive by Texas with one of its own, then scored again on its next series. The Razorbacks led by at least a touchdown the rest of the game, scoring after two of three fumble recoveries and limiting the Longhorns to 62 yards rushing on 29 tries, a 2.1 average.
"I'm happy, but I'm not overwhelmed," said Arkansas receiver George Wilson, who had five catches for 111 yards and a touchdown. "We didn't come down here to lose this ballgame. We knew we had a shot."
Jones' numbers -- 8-of-16 passing for 139 yards and a touchdown, and 12 carries for 103 yards and a touchdown -- weren't spectacular. The way he did it sometimes was.
He converted an early third-down pass despite a lineman pulling the jersey off his left shoulder. He ran for 18 yards on third-and-7 the next drive, capping it with a 9-yard TD run. He later dove for two yards on fourth-and-2.
In the fourth quarter, with the crowd of 83,271 rooting for a Texas rally, Jones took a third-and-1 bootleg keeper from his 39 to the edge of the goal line. A game-sealing field goal followed.
"I don't know if I ever remember a quarterback making so many plays -- play after play after play, with people around him, breaking tackles, completing passes," Longhorns coach MackBrown said.
Texas last lost at Royal Memorial Stadium in October 1999. It was the nation's second-longest active streak and it goes down as the third-longest in school history; a win would've matched No. 2.
The game was scheduled atBrown's urging after he was hired before the 1998 season. Emotions were stoked in 2000 when Arkansas beat Texas 27-6 in the Cotton Bowl and Nutt flashed an upside down Hook 'em Horns hand gesture.
Nutt didn't do it again, but his players did. Still, they have no idea how much the victory means to generations of Razorback fans who grew up watching Texas-Arkansas games that often decided the SWC title and sometimes had national championship implications.
Nutt, who was 0-2 against Texas while playing for Arkansas, is 2-0 as a coach. The Longhorns lead the series 54-21.
Asked where this ranks among all his wins, Nutt said, "It's up there, way high."
Texas' biggest plays came in the fourth quarter.
Dakarai Pearson returned Jones' fumble 77 yards for a touchdown to make it 28-21, then Chance Mock hit B.J. Johnson for 55 yards and followed with an 11-yard TD pass to Tony Jeffery that got the Longhorns to 35-28.
But that was it. Texas' last two drives ended on downs.
"We'd come back after some adversity,"Brown said, "and they'd come back and match us."
Cedric Cobbs ran for 115 yards, including a 46-yard touchdown, and Howard rushed for 35 yards and two scores.
Mock was 21-of-40 for 264 yards and three touchdowns, two to Johnson. Williams had 10 catches for 117 yards, his seventh straight 100-yard game, and became the school's career receptions leader. He's 25 yards from the yardage mark.
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