Monday, November 3, 2008

Arrrrrgh ... Pirates send Longhorns to Davey Jones' Locker

I couldn't decide on a pirate analogy in the title or something involving Texas getting "tortilla-wrapped". That loss to the Red Raiders was painful. See here for game recap and highlights. At least I got to experience the feeling of Texas having won this hard-fought game -- for about 1.5 seconds (when Texas freshman safety Blake Gideon dropped what would have been the game-icing interception -- a ball my 3-yr old daughter Lauren could have caught). Texas Tech thoroughly spanked the Horns for 3 quarters, leading 19-0 initially and leading 22-6 at halftime. It had the makings of a similar blow-out that Texas put on Missouri earlier this year.

Three posts earlier, I mentioned that getting lots of good press and being #1 does not suck. Well, losing a heart-breaker like this and the #1 ranking DOES suck.

But credit the Longhorns and Colt McCoy for coming back and making it a game. I respect them for that (but would have respected them more if they had shown up ready to play in the first quarter). I knew Texas wasn't as ready as they should have been on the first offensive play when Texas, pinned at their own 2 after a nice punt downing, allowed their O-line to be blown back on a running play and Ogbonnaya was dropped for a safety. Texas Tech has a DEFENSE? Who knew?

At least Texas only dropped to #4 in the BCS standings, meaning they still have some chance to play in the national title game if Texas tech loses. And it's very likely that they will -- the Pirates still have to play Oklahoma State and Oklahoma. Tech is a great team, but I'm not sure they'll have the same fire and passion in Norman against the Sooners as they had at home against then-#1 Texas. That was Tech's Super Bowl. As Texas demonstrated, it's hard to get up for 3-4 "games of the century" in a row. We'll see!

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