The Texas Longhorns took the Big 12 Title Saturday night with a hair raising 13 - 12 win over the Nebraska Cornhuskers.  This Longhorn fan came away from the game thrilled, but a little bewildered.  I’m thrilled the Longhorns won the game and a Big 12 Championship.  I’m also pleased beyond words the Longhorns are going to Pasadena on December 7th to play in the National Championship game.  I’m a little bewildered about how they got there.

This game was a complete stalemate.  When you have two of the best defenses in the NCAA effectively shutting down the offensive game on both sides, you get no yards, no points, and a battle of defense versus defense.  Most of the game was volley after volley of punts after unrealized third down conversions. 

With 2 minutes left in the first half, Texas finally takes to the board when McCoy’s offensive line pushes 2 yards through a pile of Nebraska linemen for the first touchdown of the game.  The half time score is Texas 7, Nebraska 6.

Nebraska never made good on a touchdown, they just couldn’t score against the Texas defense. They had to settle for 4 field goals. Alex Henery, Nebraska field goal kicker, almost single handed, won the game.  He was the only player to put points on the board.  He kicked 2 field goals in the first half, one of them from 52 yards out, and 2 field goals in the last quarter.

It was his last field goal that set the Nebraska crowd cheering.  Henery kicked it with 1:44 left on the game clock, which put Nebraska firmly in the lead 12 - 10.  I say “firmly” because in an offensive stalemate, a 2 point lead under the 2 minute warning is usually a win. 

Neither offense was moving the ball.  Third down conversions were shocking, 6 of 19 for Texas, and 2 of 16 for Nebraska.

Late in the third quarter Nebraska had collected only 43 total offensive yards.  Nebraska barely broke 100 total offensive yards by the end of the game, and that was due to 2 kickoff returns late in the game by Niles Paul, each for 43 yards.

Texas didn’t fare much better, collecting only 202 total offensive yards for the game.  Compare that to 597 total offensive yards against A&M last week.

When the Nebraska crowd finally stopped cheering, and the kick to Texas landed out of bounds, Texas found themselves on their own 40 yard line, with 1:44 left in the game.  Jordan Shipley had been covered like a hawk all night, but he managed to get free for a 19 yard reception, and added to that was a 15 yard penalty against Nebraska.  In a game where neither offense was moving the ball at all, Texas just moved to the Nebraska 26 in one kick and one play.  It turns out, that was the best field goal position Hunter Lawrence was ever going to get.  Texas still had one time out.

For reasons that may never be known, Brown, McCoy, or Greg Davis, or maybe all three of them, or maybe the devil, decided that McCoy needed to run three more plays.  With the BCS computers already warming up to try and figure out just who is going to play Alabama, McCoy takes the snap at 1st and 10 on the Nebraska 26, sacked for a 2 yard loss by Ndamukong Suh.  

Now, that’s someone who’s going to the NFL.  On one play I watched Suh wrestle McCoy to the ground with his right arm, and hold off a Texas Lineman with his left arm.  Another sack, he slung McCoy airborne across the field about 10 yards.

Anyway, back to the game.  2nd and 12 on the Nebraska 28, McCoy rushes for a 1 yard loss.  The game clock is down to about 11 seconds at this point, and Texas has 1 time out remaining.  Why on God’s green earth they didn’t use the time out and set up the field goal will baffle football analysts for centuries to come, but they didn’t.  3rd and 13 on Nebraska 29, McCoy takes the snap, clock running, and starts an aversive run to the deep right, still running, looking for receivers that haven’t been there all night, and finally, he throws the ball away, out of bounds.  In a moment of heart stopping realization, people began to see the game clock was 0:00.  Game Over!

Longhorn fans brains are screaming inside, why would McCoy do such a thing, and before I could even grasp fully what had happened, Mack Brown is running onto the field, yelling, 1 second, 1 second.

While officials are holding back the celebrating Nebraska crowd already filtering onto the turf, Brown’s protest goes to official review.  I’m thinking to myself, yea, sure, you know how many times an official review actually overturns a ruling on the field, about 1 out of 200. 

The video technology is amazing in these games.  As the TV begins to play back the throw in slow motion, game clock juxtaposed, I see the football hitting the ground, with the game clock reading one second!  Indisputable video evidence, that what is needed to overturn a field ruling, and that’s exactly what I was looking at.

When I saw that, I knew that Burnt Orange would glow on the UT Tower tonight.  Hunter Lawrence never misses a kick, anywhere under 50 yards.  With one second on the clock, 4th down, from 46 yards out, one kick sent the football scraping by the inside left of the goalposts.  Now, Game Over!  Texas 13, Nebraska 12.

Shut down the BCS computers, notify the voters, we have an opponent to play Alabama on December 7.

Epilogue:

However it comes to be viewed over time, I would like to go on record as saying, that the third play, with 11 seconds on the clock, was probably the worst, most unprofessional, judgment I have ever seen made on a football field.  One step further, one lingering second longer, and the game would’ve been over.  Texas 10, Nebraska 12.  Anyone who puts that much on the line for a 3rd play, trying to get closer field goal position, when Hunter Lawrence is fully capable of kicking a 46 yard field goal, or even worse yet, thinking they were getting ready to make a touchdown pass when they haven’t made one all game, well, any piece of that kind of thinking is no where close to championship thinking.

The best the Longhorns can do at this point is humbly thank Hunter Lawrence for winning the Big 12 Title, responsible parties get honest about almost blowing the game, then get on with the business of preparing for a very tough football team that makes very few mistakes.

The biggest priority for the Longhorns in preparing for Alabama is to do something about that offensive line.  Put Muschamp in charge of the offensive line for the month you have before the National Championship.

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