Texas quarterback Colt McCoy now admits he didn't know the rule about passes out of bounds, that is, the clock doesn't stop until a pass hits something, anything, in his case the grandstand railing at Cowboys Stadium. He thought, as many of us probably did, that all it took to stop the clock was to lob the ball over the line of scrimmage and wide of the sideline.
In last Saturday night's Big 12 Championship Game, McCoy surely was confused in the dying moments because it is easy to wonder what he was doing on the incomplete pass play that almost ended the game, cost Texas a trip to the national title game, and sent Nebraska to a BCS bowl game as conference champion. What now is this season's most famous single tick-of-the-clock was restored to the game clock, which allowed Hunter Lawrence to make a winning 46-yard field goal. The kick, which made the final score 13-12, truly got McCoy off the hook.
What was going on? McCoy, an engaging stand-up kid, needs to stand up now and admit he almost blew it, that he cut it too fine. That would be alright, Colt. Everything would be forgiven in Longhorn circles. You won. Instead, he's changing his story daily, no doubt hoping the questions will go away.
Let's review. Having just gone ahead 12-10 on Alex Henery's fourth field goal, Nebraska hurt itself by kicking off out-of-bounds. Texas had the ball, first down at its 40. McCoy hit receiver Jordan Shipley with a critical 19-yard pass to the Nebraska 41. Safety Larry Asante was called for a 15-yard penalty for a horse-collar tackle. (Texas fans can thank their old NFL pal Terrell Owens for that rule, by the way.) Texas quickly was at the Nebraska 26, first down.
Huskers defensive tackle Ndamukong Suh, the best player on the field and maybe in the nation (Watch for my Heisman lineman rant here soon!), sacked McCoy for a two-yard loss. On second down from the 28, McCoy ran to the left and lost another yard. On third down, McCoy dropped back and drifted to his right rather aimlessly as the clock ticked past five-seconds-to-go. Finally, he lobbed a pop-up so far out-of-bounds it might have hit Holly Rowe or Erin Andrews, or at least put a lump on the back of the head of innkeeper Jerry Jones.
What was Texas and McCoy thinking? According to the official play-by-play report the Longhorns had one timeout left. Why didn't they run twice to get a shorter field goal, then call time-out? If McCoy knew, as he stated in the post-game interview, that Lawrence preferred to kick from the right hashmark, why did he run left on the previous play? When McCoy rolled out on his third down pass, was he trying to kill time or pass for a gain, or both, while getting to the right hashmark? We may never know, but in the end it didn't matter. Well, it did matter to "Husker Nation," which is smarting from a painful loss and smells a conspiracy.
Sunday's Omaha World-Herald didn't use a whole column worth of space but did pose the question: Is Texas the only member of the conference that would have gotten the replay review that (rightfully) restored the notorious single second?
This isn't the first conspiracy theory offered up in college football. Last year, when Texas lost out to Oklahoma—a team the Longhorns defeated—in the Big 12 South because of a technical tie-breaker, Sooner fans gloated because they beat out the conference "poster boy" that always seemed to get its way.
Whether we admit it or not, it is better business for the Big 12 when Texas makes the BCS Title Game instead of Iowa State. Down deep, Big Ten administrators would rather see Michigan make the Rose Bowl instead of Indiana. More money was spent in NASCAR in the 1980s and '90s when Dale Earnhardt won races instead of Sterling Marlin. It's the way it is. TV ratings go up when the Yankees are in the World Series and the Lakers in the NBA finals.
A few years back, I married into a Nebraska family and was pulling like crazy for the Huskers Saturday night. But I know for certain, as every Husker fan knows in their heart, the game wasn't really lost in the last second. Up 6-0 and having just blocked a punt at the Texas 37 in the second quarter, Nebraska's quarterback Zac Lee threw an end zone interception. With 13 minutes to play and the Huskers behind 10-6, Niles Paul raced a punt back 43 yards to the Longhorns 10, but the painfully weak offense had to settle for another field goal. If Paul could have eluded the last tackler, Nebraska would have been ahead 13-10. And as great as the defense played, the Black Shirts couldn't keep Texas pinned at its 1 after the next kickoff. Then there was the penalty for the kickoff out of bounds from Adi Kunalic, who otherwise was excellent on kickoffs all night. Oh, what might have been for Nebraska (9-4 in the regular season) this year, which lost three games—16-15 to Virginia Tech, 9-7 to Iowa State, and 13-12 to Texas—by a total of four points.
--Bob Boyles
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