Texas Longhorns 70 Colorado 3.
Just as this special Texas Longhorn football team exorcised the Stoops Curse earlier this season, the Horns annihilated Colorado and freed Longhorn fans everywhere from the nightmare of the 2001 Big 12 Championship game in delivering UT’s first Big 12 Football Championship to their long-suffering coach, Mack Brown.
This one was not as close as the score indicates as the Horns scored their 70th point midway through the third quarter and essentially went to the belly series on offense after that. Most of the accolades go to the spectacular Vince Young and the Horns’ offense, but the development of the Longhorn defense over the past two seasons is really what has set these past two Longhorn teams apart from Brown’s previous UT squads. Last season, long-time college defensive whiz Dick Tomey joined the Longhorns staff and the Horns’ defense displayed a toughness and tenacity that Brown’s previous defensive squads had lacked. Then, after Tomey and UT defensive coordinator Greg Robinson departed for other programs after the 2004 season, Brown hired former Auburn defensive coordinator Gene Chizik, and the result has been an even more aggressive and cohesive Horns defensive unit. Most of the focus on the upcoming Rose Bowl/National Championship Game will revolve around the spectacular Young and the equally phenomenal USC running back Reggie Bush, but my sense is that, if the Longhorns are to win their first national football championship in 36 years, then it will be the performance of the Horns’ defense that will be the difference.
Oh, my. This is getting beyond ugly.
After Kris Brown’s fifth field goal with 1:08 to go put the Texans (1-11) in position for their second win of the season, the Texans’ defense again snatched defeat from the jaws of victory. Starting at the Ravens’ 13 yard line, Ravens QB Kyle Boller completed 24-yard, 11 yard, and 35 yard passes to put the Ravens (4-8) in field-goal position, and then Matt Stover kicked a 38-yard field goal with 6 seconds left giving the Ravens the victory over the hapless Texans.
I worked while watching (in a very vague way) this game, which was one of the worst football games that I have ever seen at any level. The Texans fumbled five times, received 11 penalties for 93 yards, and QB David Carr was sacked five times and had one interception, which was returned for a touchdown. Despite that overwhelming incompetence, the Texans were able to stay in the game because the Ravens fumbled four times, had eight penalties and could muster only 73 yards rushing against the worst rushing defense in the NFL. The Texans now play Tennessee next week in Nashville, and then return home for games against Arizona and Jacksonville the following two weeks before the season ends mercifully at San Francisco on January 1st. The only question then will be how quickly will Texans owner Bob McNair clean house after that final game.
By the way, things have gotten so bad with the Texans that now even a prominent corporate law professor is dissing them.
This game was just about as ugly as the Texans-Ravens fiasco. The Cowboys (7-5) totaled 208 yards of total offense, had four turnovers, and looked as bad as the Texans for the the first half of the game. But Giants QB Eli Manning was only 12 of 31 for 152 yards passing and two picks as he effectively kept the Pokes in the game. Nevertheless, the loss — coupled with the Pokes’ excrutiating loss to the Broncos on Thanksgiving Day — has now placed the Cowboys at serious risk of missing the playoffs. Their final month of the season is pretty brutal — the Chiefs at home, then games at Washington and Carolina before finishing the season at home against the Rams.
Finally, congratulations are in order for the Houston Cougars, who accepted the Ft Worth Bowl‘s offer Sunday afternoon to play Kansas on Friday night, December 23.
The Cowboys radio guys have pretty much been hitting the nail on the head when they suggest that nobody ever expected that losing oft-maligned Flozell Adams for the entire season would have such an impact. But now that the Cowboys have two bad offensive tackles and no way to protect both of them, opposing teams are starting to have a lot of fun. And, unfortunately, Marco Rivera has not lived up to his Pro-Bowl billing. The Cowboys need a little more talent on that offensive line for next season. If TO winds up at receiver and they boost the line, they could be an interesting team. But their road to the playoffs this season got very tough with these last two losses.
I felt confident that the Texans would lose both this game and the Rams game, even when we were both winning by improbable margins late in the game. Why? I don’t know, it just seemed inevitable.
I mean, to get pwn3d by a 7th round rookie out of Harvard and Kyle Boller on consecutive weeks? Painful.