This weekend, Patrick Mahomes and Baker Mayfield will meet once again, this time in the AFC divisional playoffs.

Mahomes, the reigning MVP of the defending Super Bowl champs, has the top-seeded Kansas City Chiefs positioned to repeat. Mayfield just quarterbacked the Cleveland Browns to their first playoff victory in 26 years.

But before the two gunslingers became the faces of their NFL franchises, Mayfield and Mahomes staged one of the wildest shootouts in college football history as Big 12 rivals.

To those who were there in Lubbock that October night in 2016 to watch Oklahoma outscore Texas Tech 66-59, the record-breaking numbers remain almost unfathomable to contemplate.

The two teams combined for an FBS-record 1,708 yards of offense, while Mahomes and Mayfield combined for 1,279 passing yards, also most ever in a college football game.

Mahomes himself set FBS records with 819 yards of total offense and 734 passing yards, while attempting 88 passing attempts – despite playing through a separated throwing shoulder and fractured left wrist. Mayfield countered with an OU-record seven touchdowns.

MahomesMayfield52-of-88*27-of-36734*545819*56457**School or NCAA record.

“We had to score every single drive in the second half to win that game,” Mayfield said this week. “It was an unbelievable game and unbelievable atmosphere. Just the back and forth is something that I will not forget.”

To this day, Mayfield and Mahomes remain friendly. In fact, not long before transferring from Texas Tech to OU, Mayfield actually hosted Mahomes during his official visit to Lubbock.

“It’s cool to get to play against him in such a big game, in the playoffs,” Mahomes said this week. “Known him for a long time, since I was a senior in high school and to be able to play on this stage is going to be special.”

As the two quarterbacks prepare for Sunday’s showdown, ESPN recounted their remarkable shootout from four years ago through the people there to witness it:

* An earlier version of this story ran Nov. 1, 2018

Mayfield’s return to Lubbock

Lincoln Riley: Our kids were really fired up for the game, not just Baker. It was a fun atmosphere, a hostile crowd. All the history of Baker, all the history with our staff, I mean our players talked about that through the week. So we were motivated.

Jessica Coody, Sooner Sports TV: Walking to the stadium, all the fraternity houses had these signs, all these negative comments toward Baker. I was thinking, do you people understand when you make him mad, he plays better? Then when you get in there, it’s all these “Traitor” T-shirts.

Seen a few of these shirts in the Texas Tech student section: pic.twitter.com/K0g5eCBHsx

Chris Plank, OU radio sideline reporter: I’ll never forget the pregame energy. You had a group of fans who just so badly wanted to give it to somebody. They were ready to let him have it.Chris Level, Tech sideline reporter: He was public enemy No. 1. Baker had played up to that, embraced the heel role. There were signs everywhere. As much as you were going to go cheer for Tech, you were going to cheer against Mayfield. The students were chanting, “F- you, Baker.”Mayfield: That was my “Welcome back to Lubbock” moment.Toby Rowland, OU play-by-play voice: There was a lot of venom. There was a lot of excitement on Baker’s part. He knew how he was going to be greeted and he loved walking into the lion’s den.Stoops: The only talk I ever had with Baker leading up to the game was just don’t try and make this personal or don’t make too much of this. You’re too good of a player.Riley: He wants the crowd to chant at him. He feeds off of that. He fed off it in the right way, stayed focused, stayed locked in.Mayfield (in 2016): That’s exactly how I thought it was going to be and I enjoyed it.Keke Coutee, Tech receiver: I knew the game was going to be a barn burner, because Baker had a lot to prove leaving Tech. Then Pat was such a competitor. Guy’s a baller.Stoops (this week): After watching Mahomes on tape. I was like, ‘Oh my gosh, this guy can make any throw from any angle.’Mayfield (this week): The physical attributes that Pat has – he has everything you could possibly want. His arm strength is unbelievable, but just the different arm angles and things he is able to do – I know people talk about his no-look passes and all of that – but to be able to change his arm angle, you can see why he was such an incredible athlete in baseball and basketball, as well. He’s just able to do things that a lot of quarterbacks can’t do.Drew Krueger, Tech trainer: Pat injured the shoulder against Kansas [three weeks before]. It was a significant shoulder separation. Those are very painful for any type of movement, not to mention throwing the football. He played against Kansas State, and then on the last play, he fell on it again. So it was real sore and we were all kind of unsure what to expect.Kingsbury: He had been limited in practice. They had to numb his shoulder before the game, and then he broke his [non-throwing] wrist in the first half. Nobody knew it. He just kept playing and ended up having to get surgery after the season, before the combine and bowl prep.Krueger: He just asked us to tape it up.Brian Jensen, Tech play-by-play voice: [Level] kept telling us you could see it in his face, the pain he was in. He was fighting through it all.Level: Just a total warrior.Obo Okoronkwo, OU linebacker: Patrick had the juice the whole game. He didn’t get tired. Like, he never looked tired the whole game.Kingsbury: He was so locked into the zone, and they had the same thing going on.

Mahomes:

Rick Trice, Tech statistician: We’re used to having a lot of offensive numbers here, but we were not prepared for the way that game would play out.

Kingsbury:Riley:Stoops:Okoronkwo:Teddy Lehman, OU color analyst:

Mahomes proves unstoppable

In addition to the quarterbacks, multiple players in this game would put up monster numbers. The Red Raiders would nearly have three different receivers go over 100 yards in Coutee (172), Jonathan Giles (167) and Cameron Batson (99). The Sooners, meanwhile, would become the first team in FBS history to boast a 500-yard passer, a 200-yard receiver (Westbrook) and a 200-yard rusher (Mixon), who would become the first player in OU history to finish with 200 yards rushing and 100 receiving in the same game.

Riley:Jensen:Level:

Jah’Shawn Johnson, Tech safety: Those skill guys they had were tremendous. Baker did a great job buying time and putting it on the money all night.

Total ydsPass ydsPass att.

Four minutes in, it looked as if OU was on its way to a rout. Giles fumbled the ball away on Tech’s first possession, and Mayfield hit Westbrook for the Sooners’ second touchdown. Then Mahomes faced third-and-long from deep in his own territory.

Riley:Mayfield (in 2016):Jensen:Level:Riley:Jensen:Riley:Kingsbury:

Johnson: It was very frustrating. All we needed was one stop, the way our offense was rolling. But they weren’t going to be stopped.

Orlando Brown Jr.: I don’t mean to talk bad about Tech, but they didn’t have a lot of talent defensively. Our mentality was score as much as we can.

A classic unfolds

Both offenses were hot in the first half. In the second, they were completely unstoppable. After Tech punted to open the third quarter, the two teams scored touchdowns on every drive the rest of the game for a total of 10.

Mayfield (that night):Riley:

Trice: In the third quarter, I started really keeping track of the total offense for both teams and looking at it constantly and actually updating the media relations department because I felt we were probably creeping up on NCAA records.

Kingsbury:

Johnson: Those guys were going at it, making plays left and right. It wasn’t pleasant for the defenses.

Andrews:Lehman:

Creighton DeKalb, OU band (drums): The “Boomer Sooner” count actually wasn’t abnormally high. We play Boomer between plays to encourage the team. But the offense scored so fast, we really only got to play it after touchdowns.

Lehman:Level:

Trice: You knew in the second half that if either team made a hiccup, had a turnover, had to punt, whatever, it was going to cost them the game.

Andrews:

The records start falling

Turned out, that would be the case. But not before an array of spectacular fourth-quarter plays – some of which the Red Raiders had to devise from scratch.

Kingsbury:Mahomes:Kingsbury:Stoops:Kingsbury:Mayfield:Jensen:Coutee:Stoops (this week):Jensen:Mahomes:

Chad Harberson, Tech push-up guy, tasked with doing one to match the Red Raiders’ score after each touchdown or field goal: It was insane. We were dead there at the end. Those guys holding up the pushup board, they were exhausted. We were dreading that next set we would’ve had to do if Tech had tied it up at the end. But it would’ve been well worth it.

After cutting OU’s lead to 66-59 with 1:38 to go on a 3-yard touchdown pass to Batson, Mahomes wouldn’t touch the ball again.

Riley:

Andrews: It was complete exhaustion. There were so many plays, so many catches, so many everything.

Riley:

Trice: The craziest thing about the game is that both teams had exactly the same number of yards [854]. I don’t even know how that happens.

Kingsbury:Riley:

The legend of Mayfield and Mahomes begins

Covering the game that night at Jones Stadium for ESPN, I was in the visitors tunnel afterward. Mayfield stopped by to casually rehash the game, asking what records Mahomes had broken. Like most everyone else, he too had been blown away with Mahomes’ performance.

Jensen:Coutee:Krueger:Kingsbury:Mahomes:Riley:Plank:

Johnson: That’s why Baker went No. 1. He protects the ball very well and gets the ball to his playmakers. That’s why Pat went top 10 as well. He extends plays with his feet and can make any throw.

Mayfield:

The aftermath: Exhaustion, appreciation

Immediately afterward, part of the focus nationally was on the defenses, instead of the incredible offenses. But as Mahomes and Mayfield have gone on to NFL stardom, the 2016 OU-Tech game has come to be appreciated for what it truly was – a quarterbacking classic.

Rowland:Lehman:Okoronkwo:Riley:Kingsbury:Mayfield:Okoronkwo (this week): Stoops:Kingsbury:Riley:

ESPN’s Lindsey Thiry, Jamison Hensley, Sarah Barshop and Adam Teicher contributed to this report.