Big 12 Shinanigans

So we went to the Big 12 championship between our beloved Texas Longhorns those Cornhuskers from Nebraska this weekend. Wow what a game! Not really, it was a really crappy game. Colt probably lost the Heisman trophy in one... make that 3 fell swoops. No scoring, field goals galore and then that finish. Man talk about having your fan base turn on you. If that clock would have actually run out like Nebraska thought it did, there would have been some serious dusting off of the old firemackbrown.com. Luckily for all those in the burnt orange, it turned out great. But, while we watched Hunter Lawrence setting up for the kick, I couldn't help but wonder: Why's everyone so worried?

Seriously folks. I mean you're Texas fans. Where did you learn this sense of dread? I mean Rose Bowl 1, Rose Bowl 2, countless close games... I remember the first time I ever saw Texas play in person. My wife, who wasn't my wife at the time, brought me and a friend down to see UT play Texas Tech in what would become one of the best games I've ever seen in my life. We sat down pretty close to Bevo and along with 85,000 (a number that seems small now) fans watched as the Horns pulled it out in a 43 to 40 barnburner. Call me an optimist, but from then on... I've just never been all that concerned.

Thanks, in part, for this goes to my wife. To say she's an optimist when it comes to Texas football would be quite the understatement. In truth she's almost a little delusional. I've heard her say things like: Isn't it going to be fun to watch us win this? But truth is, yeah it has been fun. Going to the Rose Bowl just a couple years after that first game was amazing. Then going back the next year and seeing us win one of the most exciting football games of all time was... well there aren't really words. Watching Colt McCoy go from someone you'd barely notice to the winningest QB in NCAA history. It's all been great fun. But one thing it hasn't been very often is disappointing. Obviously last year's Tech game was. Obviously not making it to the Championship game was a bummer but, let's look big picture here folks. In all, we have it REALLY good. I mean it could be worse... you could be a Bengals fan. Oh yeah... I am.

I think that's part of why I love Texas so much. All my life I wanted a team I could really believe in. I wanted to believe that the Bengals would win it all but Joe Montana was constantly crushing my dreams. Then the Bengals became the laughing stock of the NFL for decades. Presidents went in and out of office during the stretches that these guys failed to get a Monday Night Football appearance, not to mention playoffs. All we did was lose. I can remember games where they would fumble it in the first quarter and I'd just turn it off. Knowing what I knew about them my conditioned response, just like everyone else who invests themselves in that franchise, was "we're through". But at Texas, it's different. At Texas you can watch your Heisman hopeful play like a turd and still win. Or watch your team play like a turd and the Heisman hopeful does it by himself. Somehow "WE'RE TEXAS" just seems to inspire a whole bunch of confidence that something cool is about to happen... even in the midst of calamity.

So that's what I was thinking about when Nebraska scored the go ahead field goal with over a minute and half left to play. That's what I was thinking about as the kickoff rolled out of bounds giving us the ball on the 40. That's what I was thinking about when Shipley caught a big pass and then got horse collared. I was even thinking that something cool was about to happen when Colt rolled out in the final seconds of the game. I guess that's why rather than getting upset when it looked as if Nebraska had won, I just kinda scratched my head as if to say, "Hmmm that's odd." Just like when you go to open the refrigerator and the light's always on. If it wasn't, you'd think it a bit strange. And sure enough just like the light that always comes on, something cool happened. So with one second left on the clock I found myself saying out loud "Why yall so worried? Haven't you been watching these guys?" Hook Em

Here's to Colt not finishing behind the big boy named Suh in the Heisman race and to something cool happening in Pasadena... again.