AUSTIN -- Soon after being named Texas' head coach, Tom Herman laid out a vision that had the Longhorns winning football games with great defense and the running game.

Then the plan ran into the reality of Texas' roster makeup and the Big 12's style of play. Headed into a pivotal game Saturday with Iowa State (6-3, 5-2 Big 12), Texas (7-3, 5-2) looks a lot like other Big 12 teams.

In its last five games, Texas is averaging 38.2 points and allowing 34.4 points a game. Two games ago, Texas lost on a 33-yard touchdown pass from West Virginia's Will Grier to Gary Jennings and a subsequent two-point conversion with 16 seconds remaining. Then on Saturday at Texas Tech, Sam Ehlinger found Lil'Jordan Humphrey from 29 yards out for a winning Texas touchdown with 21 seconds remaining.

Yes, quintessential Big 12 football.

And for the moment, Texas football.

Iowa State, with its conference-leading defense and run game, is far more the exception to the rule than the Longhorns.

Excluding his injury-abbreviated performance against Baylor, Ehlinger is averaging 315.8 passing yards per game in that span with 11 touchdown passes and zero interceptions. In those four games, Texas' top rushing total is 177 yards.

"It doesn't bother me. I like winning, and we're going to win the game the way the game needs to be won," said Herman, who has Texas up to seven regular season wins for the first time since Mack Brown was fired in 2013.

Herman acknowledged that Texas' best offensive players are at quarterback (Ehlinger), receiver (Humphrey and Collin Johnson) and tight end (Andrew Beck).

Ehlinger has progressed from a game manager at the start of the season to a quarterback fully capable of leading game-winning drives, as he did at Texas Tech after Texas blew a 17-point lead.

"I do love having the game on the line and the ball being in our hands," Ehlinger said, "because we just have so much confidence in ourselves."

A sophomore who started six games as a freshman, Ehlinger is much more trusting of the offensive staff, game plan and his teammates, Herman said.

Among Texas quarterbacks, only Vince Young, Colt McCoy and Chris Simms have accounted for more TDs in a season than Ehlinger's 29.

"At the end of the day he trusts himself a lot more than I think he did in the past," Herman said. "So when you trust yourself ... you trust your knowledge of the offense, and we have given him a lot of freedom in terms of the things that we have allowed him to do at the line of scrimmage, and for the most part he's been spot on.

"He's being very aggressive without being reckless."

In many ways, Ehlinger and the offense have no margin for error given the struggles of the defense.

In an interesting nugget uncovered by The Athletic, Oklahoma's much-maligned defense is getting stops on 53 percent of its opponent's drives since Oct. 1, a number that ranks 113th in the FBS. Texas is checking in at 52 percent.

Yikes.

"Our defense, the last couple [of games] especially, have been really, really banged up," Herman said. "We weren't going to win the last few games 17-14, just wasn't going to happen. That's something that our offense understands very early in the week."