Austin, Texas ? Texas kicker Dusty Mangum doesn’t hesitate for a second. He wants his foot to beat Oklahoma.

“I really want it to come down to a field goal,” Mangum said. “It would be monumental. (This game) could decide the national championship.”

Strong words given his recent spate of misses. Third-ranked Texas (5-0) plays No. 2 Oklahoma (5-0) Saturday in Dallas in the 97th meeting between the Big 12 rivals.

In last week’s 17-15 win over Oklahoma State, Mangum missed three of four attempts that would have given the Longhorns a little breathing room. He’s 6-of-12 on the season with just two field goals of over 30 yards.

The Texas players and coaches say they still have confidence in the sophomore walk-on, who made 16 of 23 attempts last year. Mangum owns the school record with 64 consecutive extra points.

“We’re still behind him,” said safety Lee Jackson. “We know the type of kicker he is.”

Wide receiver Roy Williams offered this advice: “Just kick the ball.”

“Kickers are kind of like golfers and quarterbacks,” said coach Mack Brown. “There are days when it doesn’t work very good because you have to be so technical with what you’re doing. Dusty’s made 64 straight extra points so there’s nothing wrong with him.”

But the string of misses is unusual at Texas, which had a run of excellent kickers in recent years in former Longhorns Phil Dawson and Kris Stockton.

Brown blames one of the last week’s misses on a bobbled snap holder Beau Trahan got the ball in place in time for the kick and said he won’t replace Mangum for the Oklahoma game.

“We don’t want to put a guy in that game who has never been there before,” Brown said. “Dusty has been there.”

Even so, Brown has paid special attention to Mangum this week in practice. The coaches have charted every kick and sat Mangum down to look at film of his makes and misses to dissect what might going wrong.

Mangum said there’s no pattern to the misses. Some went to the left, others to the right. He saw some “little” technical problems on the film but wouldn’t say what they were.

He refuses to say he’s in a slump.

“If you think you’re in slump, you’ll be in a slump,” Mangum said. “I want to think positive.”

If there’s any consolation, things aren’t much better at Oklahoma.

Walk-on freshman Trey DiCarlo missed two field goals and an extra point in last week’s 31-24 win over Missouri.

“I’ve been beating myself up about it, but I can’t let that happen,” DiCarlo said.

Like Brown, Oklahoma coach Bob Stoops says he’s still confident in his kicker. “He’ll be fine.”