Texas vs. Kansas 2012: Longhorns escape with ugly 21-17 win over Jayhawks

The Texas Longhorns survived an upset bid by the host Kansas Jayhawks on Saturday, needing a touchdown pass with 12 seconds left to escape Lawrence with a 21-17 win.

Longhorns quarterback David Ash struggled mightily on Saturday, and was eventually replaced in the fourth quarter by Case McCoy. It was McCoy who led the game-winning 70-yard drive in the final two minutes, connecting with D.J. Grant on a one-yard touchdown pass to secure victory for Texas. The Longhorns had fallen behind 17-14 on a 29-yard Kansas field goal with 2:28 left in the game.

The team's struggles were not limited to the offensive side of the ball, though. The Longhorns defense allowed Jayhawks running back James Sims to run for 178 yards, and Kansas as a team rushed for 234 yards against Texas' 107th-ranked run defense.

As one might imagine, the folks at SB Nation's Texas and Big 12 blog Barking Carnival were less-than-impressed with what they saw on Saturday:

Taken as a whole, this game sucked out loud. There's no excusing our lifelessness on offense, and you more or less just have to hope it was one of those days for Ash in particular. There were a lot of individual defensive performances to be proud of in the second half, but you should certainly step on a one-dimensional team and things will be a hell of a lot harder from here on out.

Texas will travel next Saturday to Lubbock to take on the Texas Tech Red Raiders, 55-24 losers to Kansas State this weekend.