Before last night's Big XII Championship Game between the University of Nebraska Cornhuskers, winners of the Big XII North division, and the University of Texas Longhorns, winners of the Big XII South division (undefeated, and consensus #2 NCAA Division IA team in the nation after Alabama upset Florida yesterday), the general attitude in these parts was that Texas would probably win, though it was going to be closer than most national pundits would expect. And that's exactly what happened. Texas won the game 13-12, coming from behind with a 38-yard field goal with literally only one second on the clock.
So why does everyone in Husker Nation this morning feel rotten? Probably because two Nebraska errors (one poor execution, one 15-yard penalty) in the last one-and-a-half minutes (or so) of the game are the only reasons Texas was in a position to win at all. Nebraska scored a field goal to take the lead, 12-10 with about 1:40 left on the game clock. On the ensuing kick-off, instead of burying Texas deep in its own half of the field, the NU kicker flubbed it, and the ball went out of bounds short, giving Texas excellent field position near its own 40 yard line. And then a Nebraska defensive back, in trying to minimize the damage of a nineteen-yard-plus passing
gain by Texas, made a horse collar tackle on the receiver . . . giving Texas another 15 yards on top of the gain, and another first down.
A couple of plays later, Texas QB Colt McCoy stopped the clock by throwing an incomplete pass so that there was only 1 second left on the official game clock--a play that had to be reviewed because several (including ALL the Cornhuskers) thought time had actually run out and Nebraska had won.
As it was, the Texas kicker was less than a yard away from missing the kick wide to the left. And at least 2 NU defenders were within inches of getting their hands on the ball and deflecting the kick.
The loss feels so especially awful because it's a classic case of snatching defeat from the jaws of victory. No one gave NU a serious chance in the game. The Huskers were a 14-point (if not more) underdog. And they came out firing on all cylinders, because they seemed to realize they had nothing to lose and everything to gain. On their first offensive series, they went for it on 4th-and-1. They didn't make it, but they were fairly deep in Texas' territory, and it sure sent the message to the Longhorns that the Huskers were not intimidated and that they'd come to play.
The old saying that "offense wins games but defense wins championships" is true . . . to a point. Defense can get you close to winning championships, but you have to score more points than the other guy to win. The Husker defense did its job. It held the vaunted Texas offense, which until last night had averaged 43 points per game, to only one touchdown. But NU's offense has had its ups--and downs--all season long. The most common term I've heard to describe the offense is "non-existent." They couldn't score even one touchdown against Texas last night. I do not mean to diss the Longhorns' defense. They are excellent--among the top 5 in the nation. But the Huskers had plenty of chances. They just couldn't capitalize on them, be it due to interceptions, penalties (some of dubious merit), or some questionable play calling.
I thought it was brilliant that NU head coach Bo Pelini put All-Universe defensive tackle Ndamukong Suh in as a fullback on more than one key third down play. I do not think it was brilliant that Suh was used as a blocker for the ball carrier in those situations. The entire Texas defensive line keyed on Suh--I can but wonder what would have happened had the Huskers put Suh in, let Texas go after him, and run the ball carrier on a counter, up the other side of the field. Methinks THAT would have gotten the Huskers some serious offensive yardage, as long as they didn't run such a play more than twice.
So the Huskers finished their regular season at 9-4, which would have been unthinkably awful 10 years ago, but is an improvement after the debacle of the Pederson-Callahan years. And the season could have been much better than that. They could have beaten Virginia Tech (lost by only one point, again, on a last minute bit of brilliance by Tech); they should have beaten both Iowa State (lost that game by 2 points after making a record-setting 8 offensive turnovers) AND Texas (as we've just discussed). The only superlatively bad game they had was the blowout they suffered at the hands of Texas Tech. Still, coach Bo Pelini and his staff have done well in this, only their second season.
The moral of the story is that having some hope often feels worse than having none. With some hope, one can be tormented by the "coulda, woulda, shoulda"s. With no hope, there are NO "coulda, woulda, shoulda"s. With some hope, even a loss that everyone else said was inevitable feels worse than a loss when there never was any chance to win. A loss like last night's leaves one feeling that "we wuz robbed!" even though that's not what happened. Putting that one second back on the clock was the correct call, as the replay showed. Besides, blaming the loss on that last play is like everyone bleating about how the GOP stole Florida in the 2000 presidential election. What happened in Florida would have been 100% irrelevant to the outcome if Al Gore had only managed to win his own home state of Tennessee. Had the final Huskers' kick off put Texas deep in its own territory, even if the horse collar tackle had still happened and been penalized, Texas most probably would not have been able to get close enough to try that last-second field goal in the first place.
Let's just hope that the Huskers learn the right lessons from this season's ups and downs, and that Pelini works as hard and as diligently on preparing the offense for next year as he did the defense for this one. Oh, and that the Huskers win big in their upcoming bowl game.
