Bill Little Articles XIII

Bill Little articles For https://texassports.com–

• Late Game Heroics- UCLA

• First Thanksgiving Game

• A New Royal Day

• A win for the Team

• Heading to Lubbock

• A Moment for the Soul

• Still Waters Run Deep

• In Search of the Next Hero

• Just for the Fun of It

 

11.24.2020 | Football

Late Game Heroics and a Miracle Play in Football’s 1970 Championship Season

As UT celebrates the 50th Anniversary of its 1970 National Championship season, we take a look back at a memorable play that kept the Longhorns’ back-to-back title hopes alive.

By BILL LITTLE

This week we honor the 50th Anniversary of Texas’ 1970 National Championship team. It was a truly special year that was highlighted by Darrell Royal and the Longhorns’ second-straight national title, extended a lengthy winning streak and provided many great memories. We all know one play does not make a season or a game, but with a critical top-25 contest in the balance, a miraculous pass connection managed to keep hope alive in the 1970 stampede to another title.

To get to that critical play, we’ll begin by setting the scene. Coach Royal and Texas, which had claimed its second national title in six years in 1969, were the talk of college football. The innovative “Wishbone Offense,” which was devised in 1968 and featured a triple-option attack, had won impressively against any and all competition. Texas entered 1970 with a 20-game winning streak from 1968-69, a stretch in which its ground-and-pound attack had averaged nearly 350 yards rushing per game. The Longhorns ranked either No. 1 or No. 2 in the national polls for 15-straight weeks, and the only close calls came in capping the 1969 National Championship season with dramatic come-from-behind victories over No. 2 Arkansas in the “Game of the Century” and No. 9 Notre Dame in the Cotton Bowl Classic.

Texas opened the 1970 season much like they had in the previous 20 games, by rushing for better than 400 yards in a pair of decisive victories over Cal (56-15) and at Texas Tech (35-13). So, there was little reason to think that Coach Royal’s juggernaut could be slowed down, and more of the same was expected as the No. 2 Longhorns welcomed No. 13 UCLA to Austin and Texas Memorial Stadium on October 3, 1970. But an unbeaten Bruins team led by veteran coach Tommy Prothro, loaded with talent and a unique defensive scheme, was up for the challenge of the mighty Longhorns despite being 22-point underdog.

That was the scene as 66,000 fans filled Texas Memorial Stadium for a rare, early-season 4 p.m. kickoff. The typical early October night game timing had been altered due to the removal of lights and construction of the upper deck on the stadium’s west side, which would dramatically increase the Horns capacity at its home game venue.

The pundits figured that the late afternoon Texas heat would affect the Bruins, and by the season of 1970, Royal had become one of the most respected coaches in the college game. On the other side, however, was Prothro. For most of two years, he and his staff had studied Royal’s unique offensive system, and now they had the opportunity to see if they could stop it. It take didn’t long to find out.

One of the staples of the “Wishbone” attack called for the quarterback to fake to the fullback, then ride down the line for a blind pitch back to a trailing halfback. In the 1969 National Championship season, Royal and his crew had used that formation with such success that they gained 611 yards rushing in a single game against SMU. Eighty of their 90 plays were runs in that game and the Horns averaged 7.6 yards per carry in a 45-14 win over the Mustangs.

This time, the quarterback was Eddie Phillips, who had taken over for the legendary and undefeated signal caller James Street and would go on to become one of the best to ever play the option quarterbacks in his own rights. He took the snap, faked to All-American fullback Steve Worster, then rolled down the line to his left. He turned loose the pitch to the trailing back, as he had done hundreds of times before. This time, the ball hit the crashing UCLA defender squarely in the back of his helmet as he leveled the UT running back, Billy Dale, who was on the ground before the ball even got to where he was supposed to be.

“That defense was well-conceived and well-executed,” Royal would say later. “UCLA brought some good people to town and they came in a bad humor.”

And then he added, in his famed folksy humor from his days growing up during the ‘Dust Bowl’ in Oklahoma: “Tommy Prothro didn’t come in on a load of wood, either. He knows something about this game.”

Prothro’s innovative defense stymied the Longhorns and eventually would cause Royal and his staff to adjust their offensive attack. In the moment, however, the more pressing issue for Royal and the Longhorns was finding a way to win this critical football game.

Bruins quarterback Dennis Dummit was superb as his team overcame a 13-3 Texas halftime lead. The win streak, the dream of back-to-back national championships, and all that went with it hung in the balance as, with Texas trailing, 17-13, late in the game, halfback Jim Bertelsen slipped on a fourth-down play and failed to convert with only 2:27 left. The Longhorn defense held, but by the time Texas got the ball back at its own 49-yard line, only 52 seconds remained. Two plays later, including a fumble that rolled out of bounds, UT faced a third-and-19 with the ball at the UCLA 45-yard line.

Just a bit more than a year before, Royal was best known as one of the most conservative coaches in the game. He joined Ohio State’s Woody Hayes in his joking about the forward pass, and the fact that, “When you pass, three things can happen, and two are bad.”

But after the famed fourth-down pass that set up the game-winning touchdown against Arkansas, and an equally successful short pass on a fourth-down play that beat Notre Dame, a lone UT staffer was in the press box elevator at the historic Cotton Bowl stadium. He was accompanied by an elevator operator who had seen all of the “ups and downs” of the game of college football since the stadium had opened more than 40 years before.

“Man,” mused the attendant. “I sure would not want to get into a poker game with that Darrell Royal. He’s a real riverboat gambler.”

And so, at approximately 6:30 p.m., on the field that at the time was called Texas Memorial Stadium, Phillips took the snap and dropped back to pass. The sun was sinking over the shadow of structure that would become the upper deck on the west side. A group of 99 sports writers and broadcasters — all that a makeshift plywood structure that served as a temporary press box could hold — watched as tight end Tommy Woodard cut across the middle. A UCLA defender swiped at the ball in Phillips’ hands, but missed.

Back toward the south end zone, All-American receiver Cotton Speyrer ran a deep post pattern, and as he jumped for the ball at the 20-yard line, a UCLA defensive back was poised to make the tackle. In another time and place, our story could end that way. But as the members of the media and staff fought the sunset to see what happened, their view was suddenly obliterated by a sea of glisten. From the student section on the east side, suddenly everything that was loose — most of it was full of ice and water and whatever one might have carried with them — came sailing into the setting sun.

Speyrer caught the ball and landed on his right foot. And as the UCLA defender went for a tackle, Cotton spun like a ballet dancer, and his first step came from his left foot as he turned toward the south end zone and ran untouched for the game winning touchdown. A cryptic photo, shot from the Texas sideline, shows the UCLA bench in the background, with a tall, stunned assistant coach, frozen in time, his mouth wide open.

Twelve seconds remained.

Hammered by a UCLA defender just seconds after he released the pass, Phillips picked himself up off the turf, never seeing the play’s conclusion, but assured of its success by the roar of the crowd. Royal’s memory was not unlike those from other successes, when he almost magically came up with the right play, and the right people, at the right time.

“You’ve got to go for something big and something good has to happen down there,” he said.

The thrilling victory was the 23rd-straight for Texas, setting a Southwest Conference record. Learning important lessons from the miraculous finish, Royal and his staff adjusted the offensive scheme to include accounting for changes in opponents’ defenses after the UCLA game, and by the time Texas ended the regular season facing the Arkansas team which narrowly lost in 1969, the ‘Horns won going away, 42-7.  In fact, Texas won its last three regular season games by scores of 58-0 (TCU), 52-14 (Texas A&M) and 42-7 (Arkansas). All totaled, that’s Texas, 152, and those challengers, 21. Texas won a third-straight SWC Championship, and the Longhorns were ranked No. 1 in either The Associated Press or Coaches Poll for each of the final seven weeks of the season.

At the time, the coaches poll crowning of the national champions was awarded at the end of the regular season by United Press International, and bowl game results were not included in the vote. Ironically, that was how the polls worked partly because Notre Dame had not been a regular bowl game participant for more than 40 years prior to the 1970 Cotton Bowl classic where UT secured a 21-17 victory over the Irish to put the icing on a perfect 11-0 National Championship season in 1969.

So, with the winning streak reaching 30 games, the Longhorns were tabbed National Champions in the UPI Coaches Poll, their second-straight title. The streak was finally stopped in a rematch with No. 5 Notre Dame in the final game of that 1970 season at the Cotton Bowl, costing the Horns The AP national title, but national champs, nonetheless.

Six Longhorns from that 1970 squad were named All-American – consensus first-teamers defensive end Bill Atessis, fullback Steve Worster and offensive tackle Bob Wuensch, as well placekicker Happy Feller, linebacker Scott Henderson and the UCLA game hero, wide receiver Cotton Speyrer. Worster finished fourth in the Heisman Trophy balloting, and in addition to the All-Americans, halfback Jim Bertelsen and offensive guard Bobby Mitchell were tabbed All-SWC.

Royal would be recognized by ABC Sports as the Coach of the Decade for the 1960s. During his 20 years at Texas, his teams won three National Championships, finished in the nation’s top five nine times, claimed 11 SWC titles and accumulated an overall record 167-47-5. That includes a 21-1 mark during the consecutive national crowns of 1969 and 1970.

The Longhorns’ back-to-back championship runs evoke visions of their overpowering Wishbone Offense, and rightfully so. However, the 1969 team was also remembered for a fourth-quarter comeback at Arkansas and the memorable fourth-down pass from Street to Randy Peschel that ignited it, as well as a Street to Speyrer fourth-down completion in the win over Notre Dame in the Cotton Bowl. Like those plays that capped the 1969 season and the 499th and 500th victories in Texas history, on a sunny day in Austin in 1970, it was Phillips’ improbable connection with Speyrer that would be such a big part of the tale of the 1970 National Champions.

11.22.2012 | Football

Bill Little commentary: The first Thanksgiving game

Nov. 22, 2012

Bill Little, Texas Media Relations

(As the Longhorns prepare to host TCU on Thanksgiving Night, here is a story of the first time The University of Texas ever played on Thanksgiving Day – in fact, it is a story of its very first game. As published in “Stadium Stories – Texas Football,” here is an account of that day, and that time. BL)

It was a manly sport, this football, and for almost twenty-five years, those “Yanks” at the likes of Harvard, Rutgers, Princeton and Yale had played the game with fervor that captured the headlines in the newspapers and magazines of the time.

The University of Texas was a small college in Austin that was ten years old in 1893, and was going about the business of trying to establish itself as a “University of the First Class,” the way the founders of the Republic – and later the state – had envisioned it fifty years before.

Through the mist, picture the way it was that November night when fifteen or so “wannabe” football players, and a couple hundred fans gathered at the train station in Austin for a ride to Dallas.

It was nearly midnight when the train of the International and Great Northern Railroad – its great engine straining to go – finally heard the conductor shout, “All aboard.”

Thanksgiving morning, 1893, dawned a new day for that college in Austin, for those young men were destined for Fairgrounds Park in Dallas, where they would play the vaunted Dallas Football Club, the self-proclaimed “Champions of Texas.”

Unbeaten for several years, and unscored on for a time as well, the Dallas club had heard a team had been formed at the state university down in Austin, and the bruisers from Dallas issued a challenge for the upstarts to “come on up.”

The game was set for Thanksgiving Day in the hopes that it would draw a crowd in Dallas, which was then a bustling city of nearly 40,000.

To understand the game you must first understand the rules, and it helps to know that the game folks saw that day was considerably different than the game we know today.

The first college game between Rutgers and Princeton had been played in 1869, and fifty students participated in what amounted to a group of guys pulling off their coats to engage in a primitive game of soccer.

By 1893, eighty-eight colleges had football teams, and the game had been scaled down to where eleven players were on each side while on the playing field, which was 110 yards long.

Writer-historian Lou Maysel, in his book, “Here Come the Texas Longhorns,” further explained the game of the day:

“…(the) goalposts (were) at each end and there was no end zone area. The ball was put into play from scrimmage by the center shoveling the ball back to his quarterback, who always handed it off to another player. Only lateral passes were legal, which made the game primarily one of frontal power runs. End runs were occasionally tried, but defensive ends were always played extremely wide to avoid being outflanked. The necessity of making only five yards on three consecutive downs to get a new set of downs also dictated straight ahead football.

“Teams could station any number of players on the line and tight mass formations were used. Players behind the line could start forward before the center shoveled the ball back and momentum plays employing this practice were the vogue then. Often, teammates would push or pull the ball carrier forward for additional gain while the defensive team tried to wrestle him down or carry him backward. Kicking was an integral part of the game then, as it is now, but the scoring was different from today’s system. A field goal was worth five points, while a touchdown produced only four points. A successful goal-after-touchdown (free kick) counted two points, as did a safety.”

The Texas team arrived in Dallas at 8:30 that morning, and quickly showed the Dallas ruffians they meant business, too.

“When we got there,” recalled guard Billy Richardson, “we all bought big cigars and strutted down Main Street.”

The day quickly took on the bantering that would later become famous in Dallas as the Texas-Oklahoma weekend.

Fans of the Texas team began their own yell, which went like this:
“Hullabaloo, hullabaloo,
`Ray, `ray, `ray.
Hoo-ray, hoo-ray.
Varsity, varsity, U. T. A.”

In his book, Maysel recalls that a young newsboy listened to the yell and then responded in a loud voice:
“Hullabaloo, hoo-ray, hoo-ray,
Austin ain’t in it today, today.”

But he would be proved wrong.

“Varsity,” as the team was known, took the field with determination on that mild November day.

“When the teams came out for the game, a spectator who had never seen football before was first taken by the players’ bushy hair, which gave them their only cranial protection,” wrote Maysel. “Uniforms consisted of lightly-padded breeches and home-made canvas vests tightly laced over long-sleeved jerseys. Heavy stockings and shoes, some with homemade leather cleats nailed on, completed the battle gear of that day.”

Wrote the Dallas News that day, “To a man who has never heard of Walter Camp and doesn’t know a halfback from a tackle, the professional game of foot ball (sic) looks very much like an Indian wrestling match with a lot of running thrown in.”

Not in their wildest imagination could those young men of the late 19th century have envisioned where their game might lead. Even getting to Dallas wasn’t an easy task in those days.

Where today’s football teams travel first class and stay in five-star hotels, the eager collegians of 1893 didn’t have adequate funds to make the 200 mile trip to Dallas. A local clothing goods store, Harrell & Wilcox, loaned the team one hundred dollars to cover food and lodging.

The ticket agent for the International and Great Northern Railroad, a fellow named Peter Lawless, supplied the round-trip tickets for the team.

There were only a couple of buildings on the campus of the young university, which had been started only ten years earlier. University tuition was only thirty dollars and that allowed a student to attend as long as was needed in his course of study. To get into school, a diploma from an approved high school was the only entrance requirement. Graduates of Sam Houston Normal (now Sam Houston State) and Texas Agricultural and Mechanical College were also accepted. You could earn a bachelor’s degree in the arts, literature, science, civil engineering and law, and a medical degree was available at the University’s branch in Galveston.

Austin itself had 15,000 residents.

It had taken nine hours to get there on the train, but when the big engine pulled into the station in Dallas, the city was awake and ready for a festive day.

The grandstand on the Exposition Grounds of the State Fair was packed long before the scheduled 2:30 kickoff. It was almost balmy, particularly for a late November day, as the temperature reached the low 70s. But as two thousand people watched, the biggest crowd ever to see a game in Dallas up to then was about to really heat up.

Even though Dallas had a reputation as the giants of the gridiron, there actually wasn’t much difference in the size of the young collegians and the seasoned city fellows.

Both the Texas and Dallas teams supposedly averaged almost 162 pounds per man, and the backs for both teams weighed in at between 135 and 155 pounds.

The teams were full of colorful characters, but none more so than the workhorse of the Texas offense, a young cowboy from Ballinger, Texas, named Addison “Ad” Day. Not only was Day the main rusher for the team, he was the first kicker in school history. It was Day who would set the tone as the game began.

Texas took the opening kickoff of the game and drove down the field using power plays. When Day pounded the center of the line right at the Dallas goal and the ball popped free, teammate James Morrison, a tackle, picked up the ball and ran in for the first score. When Ad Day kicked the ball through the goal posts for the two-point conversion, the young college kids had a 6-0 lead.

Dallas would never recover. Day scored another touchdown and kicked the ensuing goal, but by halftime, the Dallas Football Club had regrouped and cut the score to 12-10.

The forty-five minute half was followed by a bicycle race at intermission, and the officials needed the time. There were no penalties in those days for “unsportsmanlike conduct,” and players regularly openly argued with officials, so much so that referee Fred Shelley of the Austin Athletic Club got enough of Dallas’ bickering that he quit after the first half.

His fellow official (there were only two), umpire Tom Lake of the Fort Worth football team, recruited one of his teammates to be the referee for the final stanza.

But when the second half started, there was Addison Day again, pounding his way and finally running fifteen yards for a touchdown and kicking the goal for an 18-10 lead.

With a minute remaining, Dallas scored again, but the touchdown and kicked goal only narrowed the score to 18-16. Under the modern table of points, that would have been a 21-20 Texas victory.

If the goal of the Dallas team was to intimidate the collegians, it didn’t work. Texas played the full ninety minutes with only one player leaving for an injury. Dallas’ reputation for roughness was answered by Texas.

Maysel, writing of the game in his book, recounted a conversation with tackle Robert E. Lee Roy, who went on to be a District Judge in Fort Worth.

“He did not name the team involved,” wrote Maysel, “but from his references, it was clearly the Dallas gang.”

“We went up against one team that had the reputation of being a killing team and before we went to the town to play them, our captain, Paul McLane, taught us a `killing code’ just in case,” Maysel quoted Roy as saying. “The game had not been going long until the other side made a deliberate attempt to break the leg of one of our men. Then McLane gave us the `killing code’ and we put three of the other side out in less than ten minutes of play. The captain of the other side called for time and came across with the request we try to play the rest of the game without any rough stuff.”

The upset victory so stunned Dallas that end Tom Monagan, who played the game with a broken finger suffered early in the fray, said afterwards, “Our name is pants, and our glory has departed.

“With that,” wrote Maysel, “he pulled on his overcoat, jerked his cap down over his eyes, wiped some blood off his face and started for home.”

For the Texas team, the fun was just beginning. John Henry “Baby” Myers, the team heavyweight at 210 pounds, had handled the kickoff return duties, even though he was a center.

He claimed he had just gotten the hang of the game when time ran out.

“Why are we quitting now?” he asked teammate Morrison. “It’s nowhere near sundown.”

11.11.2012 | Football

Bill Little commentary: A new Royal day

Nov. 11, 2012

Bill Little, Texas Media Relations

Bobby Lackey, who was the quarterback on Darrell Royal’s first Southwest Conference Championship team, was touched when he heard the 2012 Longhorns were going to honor the late coach by lining up in the Wishbone formation on offense.

Lackey, who played before the Wishbone days (1957-59), remembers the time when he decided to run a quarterback “bootleg” and scored a touchdown on the play. After the game, Royal asked him to come to his office the next day.

“That was a good play,” Darrell had said. “But don’t do that again…it is not in our playbook.”

Soon, however, Lackey said the play was incorporated into the Longhorns’ regular attack.

When the Wishbone offense was getting started in 1968, the Longhorns had a critical home game with SMU in their seventh game of the year. The traditional formation had rolled the Longhorns to four straight victories after Texas had started the year with a tie and a loss.

SMU, coached by Hayden Fry, had the nation’s top passer in Chuck Hixson, and were locked in a four-team race for the SWC championship with UT. The game had all the implications of a showdown. That is why, on Thursday after practice, Royal sent running back Chris Gilbert into the locker room to get split end Cotton Speyrer and members of the backfield to come back to the practice field. There, at the end of what was usually just a day of tune-ups, they put in a play called “Sam Reverse.”

Never before had Texas done anything out of the Wishbone except runs and an occasional pass. But “Sam” stood for “split end” in the Texas terminology, and that meant Speyrer was going to be involved in something very different.

They practiced the play late that afternoon and worked on it (after the stadium was cleared) on Friday. When Saturday afternoon came, Texas had a 7-0 lead and the ball at its own 18. Reserve running back Billy Dale brought in the play. Quarterback James Street said “I never mess with that one” (meaning a directive from Royal himself), and they snapped the ball and looked to be running the triple option to the right. Speyrer came streaking across – just as you might see a Longhorn on a speed sweep today – took the pitch and ran 81 yards to the one before he was tackled. Texas scored and went on to win, 38-7, eventually claiming the SWC title and winning the 1969 Cotton Bowl game over Tennessee.

It was a stark contrast to Royal’s image of relying on a basic attack, and it made him the talk of the football nation. And after the game, he said this: “I was surprised so many people were surprised we ran it.”

So there you have it. Of all of the things you should remember about him, know that Darrell Royal was always an innovator, who was always searching for new and better ways to win. Somewhere far beyond the skies, Darrell Royal had his feet propped up, was likely sipping a cold beverage and smiling when the entire football world looked in to see Texas in the Wishbone formation for the first time in almost 40 years. And when current quarterback David Ash flipped to wide receiver Jaxon Shipley who threw it back to Ash who passed downfield to tight end Greg Daniels, James Street stood at the front of his suite and watched. He had already told fellow viewers he might not run from the formation when the Longhorns found themselves backed up to the five yard line. Mack Brown and Bryan Harsin and the offensive staff had had the same thought. But the Longhorn players had practiced all week for this moment, so the coaches decided to go ahead and run the play.

“I watched in silence,” said Street. “And when the play was over, I said my little prayer to coach. He would have really liked that call. It could not have been a better day.”

On the field, Mack Brown and the players were pointing to the sky on the morning of a day of mourning that turned with the sun and skies into a day of celebration – not only of Royal’s life and the tribute paid to all U.S. Military veterans, but for a growing group of young players who have become the hottest team in the Big 12 Conference.

The irony of the final score, 33-7, was not lost on long-time Longhorns. In 1961, when Royal had what he always said was his best offensive team, three of their ten victories were accomplished by scores that were within a point of the exact same score that flashed as the game ended on Saturday.

Royal, who was always quick to defer credit to his players, would be the first in line to deflect praise for him and his legacy toward the outstanding on-the-field performance of the 2012 Longhorns, who extended their record to four straight wins and an 8-2 mark with two regular season games to play. Ash was superb, hitting 25 of 31 passes for 364 yards and two TDs. Shipley caught eight passes for 137 yards, and Mike Davis had a 61-yard TD catch and 113 yards on seven receptions. The run game of which Royal would have been so proud pounded out 222 yards, led by Joe Bergeron with 86 yards on 12 carries and Johnathan Gray with 74 yards on 14 carries and two touchdowns.

The defense was outstanding throughout the game, but stiffened even more in the second half, allowing only 18 plays that netted 64 yards after intermission. In all, the Longhorns kept the ball for almost two thirds of the game on offense – a little over 38 minutes compared with a little less than 22 for the Cyclones. Iowa State had the ball for only a bit over six minutes of the final 30 minutes of the game.

Ash, and fellow quarterback Case McCoy, who was perfect with his only pass in the game’s final drive which ate up six and a half minutes to close out the `Horns scoring, threw for a collective 26 of 32 for 387 yards, putting Texas over 600 yards in total offense for the game compared with just 277 for ISU. Defensive end Alex Okafor led the team in tackles with nine, followed by linebackers Steve Edmond and Peter Jinkens and safety Adrian Phillips with six each. Cornerback Carrington Byndom and safety Josh Turner each had an interception, and there were seven tackles for lost yardage.

On a day when it was hard to separate Darrell Royal the icon from Darrell Royal the coach, it was interesting to reflect with Street and those other players who played for Royal during his twenty years as head coach between 1957 through 1976. And when you connect the dots to today and this current team, there is one very important message there for all of us.

When I was working on the book, “What It Means To Be A Longhorn,” Coach Royal agreed to write one of the forewords. In that message, Royal wrote that being a Longhorn meant “it’s a chance.” He talked about the honor, and the responsibility to maintain integrity. But then, almost as if he were thinking about this team and every other team or person who played the game, he said this:

“People have often asked me how I would like to be remembered, and my answer is pretty simple. I tell them that, on my tombstone, I don’t want it to say that I never made a mistake. I’d like it to say, `He meant well.'”

11.04.2012 | Football

Bill Little commentary: A win for the team

Nov. 4, 2012

Bill Little, Texas Media Relations

LUBBOCK, Texas — The message, throughout this 2012 season, has never changed for the Texas Longhorns. It has always been about the “team.” It has always been about each other. And Saturday before the largest crowd ever to see a game on the South Plains in Lubbock, they won as a team.

Mack Brown has always preached “they will remember November.” If that’s true, Saturday’s events in the Big 12 Conference have set the newly reconfigured league up for a heckuva finish.

National Championship hopes, BCS Bowl hopes, Big 12 Conference title hopes all now are in play (in one way or another) for four of the league’s ten teams.

Texas took its record to 7-2 overall and 4-2 in Big 12 play with its 31-22 victory over Texas Tech — a win which frustrated not only the Red Raiders, but every media member and Vegas odds maker who picked the black and red over the burnt orange and white.

In what Mack Brown, who is now 12-3 against Texas Tech during his time at Texas, called the “best overall team performance of the season,” the Longhorns controlled every phase of the game.

It began with creative game plans on both offense and defense, and it was realized by the execution of the play by a young and growing Longhorns team. The offense challenged Texas Tech’s defense, which was ranked No. 12 nationally, with precision passing and speed to achieve a 24-13 halftime lead. Meanwhile the Longhorns defense was limiting the high powered Red Raider offense to just 82 yards on 18 second quarter plays.

Since Mack Brown came to Texas, Texas Tech has won three times in Lubbock — each (42-35 in 1998, 42-38 in 2002 and 39-33 in 2008) came with a dagger-in-the-heart finish. So as the Longhorns offense seemed to stymie in the third quarter and Texas Tech collected a field goal and a touchdown with only 1:35 remaining, it appeared the home team had fought its way back again.

But when cornerback Carrington Byndom broke up a two-point conversion attempt that would have tied the game at 24 with 1:35 left before the start of the fourth quarter, the UT defense had delivered a major play in the game. It was Texas 24, Texas Tech 22.

The fourth quarter would be the epitome of what Brown, his staff, and the Longhorns have been seeking. When Texas Tech took over at their own 27 with 14:47 left, the Raiders’ Seth Doege completed a nine-yard pass to the 36. But when defensive end Cedric Reed stopped running back Kenny Williams for a yard loss and linebacker Steve Edmond broke up a third down pass, what had started with promise for Tech ended in a punt.

Special teams entered the equation when a Tech defender ran into Quandre Diggs as he attempted to catch the Raiders’ fourth down punt, and the 15-yard penalty moved the Horns to their own 41.

Riding the feet of freshman Jonathan Gray and sophomore Joe Bergeron for six-of-seven straight running plays, Texas moved to the TT 25. There, Ash found Mike Davis in the end zone for a touchdown that led to a nine point lead.

Still, 9:14 remained in the game, and everything pointed to Texas Tech’s ability to score twice in that period of time. The Texas defense, despite more injuries to an already depleted crew, refused to yield easily. It took Doege almost four minutes to drive from his 25 to the Texas two yard line, where a holding penalty negated a touchdown. When Texas stopped Tech at the six following the penalty, the Raiders — needing nine points — chose to kick what would appear an automatic field goal.

Three other times, the Texas defense had stiffened and forced Tech to kick a field goal. Three times, Ryan Bustin had made the kick. Three times, Carrington Byndon had raced in, dived, and just missed blocking the kick. This time, he didn’t miss. As Bustin prepared to bring the Raiders within six points, Byndom stretched out and knocked down the ball.

The defense had held. The special teams had responded. Now, with 5:15 remaining, it was up to the Texas offense to move out of harm’s way.

An axiom of Mack Brown football has always been that to be a great offense, you have to run the ball off your goal, run it going in to score, and run it in the fourth quarter. From its own 20 yard line, Texas began to run. Gray, who was playing on the field where his dad, James, had become a legend as a running back, carried the ball six times and fellow freshman Daje Johnson added a 11-yard run. Texas moved to the Red Raider 33 before David Ash kneeled for the final two snaps of the game to preserve the victory.

The Texas defense held Doege to just one touchdown pass, and the Raiders to two touchdowns. Three times they forced Tech to settle for field goals, and on that last drive they set the table for Byndom’s heroics. The unit had five tackles for loss, and Alex Okafor had a sack of Doege. Of the 55 tackles listed on the unofficial team stats, 51 were judged as solo tackles.

Ash opened hitting nine of his first ten passes, and ended the game 11 for 19 for 264 yards. Davis had a personal-best day with four catches for 165 yards and two TDs. Gray was spectacular with his second straight 100-plus rushing game (106 on 20 carries) and two pass receptions for 41 yards. Jaxon Shipley caught the first TD pass from Ash and had two catches for 30 yards.

Punter Alex King averaged 45.8 yards on four punts, and dropped one inside the ten. Byndom’s blocked kick kept the Longhorns as the nation’s leader in that category.

Back-to-back losses to West Virginia and Oklahoma a month ago had given the Longhorns a “gut check.” In such situations, you get to decide where you and going, and who is going with you. The team pulled together, and each phase of the game grasped its role. Saturday, together they won.

There is still much to do in this season of 2012, and as the members of the new Big 12 come to understand the ramifications of a league where everybody plays each other, there is much to be decided.

Consider this: K-State is 6-0, but is dealing with an injury to its star quarterback Collin Klein. The Wildcats play at TCU and at Baylor before taking Thanksgiving weekend off and hosting Texas on Dec. 1 in its final game of the year.

Oklahoma is 4-1 and the Sooners finish the season by hosting Baylor, playing at West Virginia, hosting Oklahoma State and visiting TCU.

Texas is 4-2 and has home games with Iowa State and TCU before going to K-State.

Oklahoma State is 3-2 and hosts West Virginia and Texas Tech before finishing on the road at Oklahoma and Baylor.

Everybody else has at least three losses.

The league has proven to be everything its creators envisioned.

And somewhere in November (or maybe on Dec. 1) it will all sort itself out. As for the Longhorns, they have once again prevailed in Lubbock, in another really good football game between two good college football teams.

As the teams left the field, Mack Brown sought to find Seth Doege to tell him again how much he respected him. David Ash and co-offensive coordinator Bryan Harsin shared an embrace, and then Harsin and defensive coordinator Manny Diaz caught each other with a huge hug.

Football is a game of emotion, and for coaches, it can only be experienced in how their kids play. And on a near-perfect day on the South Plains in Lubbock, their kids had played pretty darn well.

11.02.2012 | Football

Bill Little commentary: Heading to Lubbock

Nov. 2, 2012

Bill Little, Texas Media Relations

LUBBOCK, TX – On the road to Lubbock, particularly if you take the cut-through highway from Brownwood to Sweetwater through Winters, you will pass farm fields which will share the history of an oil pump jack and the surreal image of what seems a sea of wind turbines.

It is part of your journey to determine what is real, and what isn’t.

And as the 2012 Texas Longhorn football season crosses West Texas and climbs the Caprock toward the Texas Panhandle, Lubbock lies squarely in the foreground.

It has been 50 years since Texas and Texas Tech played their first league game in Jones Stadium in Lubbock. In the Mack Brown era, the two schools have met 14 times, and the three Red Raider wins have all come here. The Raiders edged the Longhorns in 1998, 2002 and 2008. Since the home team’s victory in 2002, Texas has won eight of the last nine games – the only exception being the heart-breaking last second loss that knocked the Longhorns out of the chance to play for the national championship four years ago.

There is a touch of irony in this current meeting. On most of the trips to Lubbock, the Longhorns have been favored. In this one, the Red Raiders are picked to win by a touchdown over UT. The last time Texas came here with the media so ensconced in the Red Raiders’ corner was in 2004. That season, following a shutout loss to Oklahoma and a narrow victory over Missouri, Texas entered the game ranked No. 8. Texas Tech was coming off of a huge victory over Nebraska, and though the Raiders were ranked only twenty-fourth, the media leaned heavily toward Tech, clamoring that Texas quarterback Vince Young should be moved to wide receiver.

Obviously, as history tells us, it didn’t work out that way. In a 51-21 victory, the game marked the arrival of Young as a force in college football – a run that wouldn’t end until the Longhorns’ victory in the BCS National Championship game a year later.

The Texas-Texas Tech series began as an annual affair when the Raiders officially began playing football as a member of the Southwest Conference in 1960. Fifty years ago, the ‘Horns made their first trip to Lubbock in one of the stranger scenarios of the series. First, half of the stadium lights went out with a power failure. Then, Texas Tech head coach J.T. King thought he would catch the Longhorns napping on the opening play of the game. Long an advocate of field position, he won the toss and chose to receive. Then, to everyone’s surprise, he had his kick returner punt the ball back toward the Texas goal – a play that was perfectly legal then. The strategy failed, however, when the kick failed to get the desired roll, and Texas drove for an easy score in a 34-0 shutout.

In 1968, Tech picked up its first win in the series in Lubbock, 31-22, but as far as history recalls it, the night was a significant win for Texas. For all practical purposes, it was the night that the Wishbone Offense was born. Texas had unveiled the new formation – which had a fullback and two halfbacks lined up behind the quarterback and operated out of a triple-option attack – the week before in a 20-20 tie with Houston. Trailing at the half in Lubbock, Darrell Royal made the decision to replace starting quarterback Bill Bradley with junior James Street. Just as Vince’s story would begin years later, so Street’s legend began that night – even though his second half comeback failed to overcome the Red Raider lead. Starting with the next week, Street took the Longhorns to victory in 20 straight games, part of a 30-game winning streak that produced two national champions at the end of the decade of the 1960s.

The series in the 1970s and 1980s began to even out some, as the Red Raider program went through a coming-of-age period during the arrival of former Longhorn assistant Spike Dykes – who had a knack of knocking off both Texas and Texas A&M, the two schools folks at Tech would rather beat than anybody else.

The shifting of the conference affiliations has returned TCU to the Texas Tech radar. Historically, those two schools waged some pretty strong battles for recruits in West Texas. Though an emerging Angelo State has become attractive to lots of Austin high school graduates who seek to leave home for college, Texas Tech still has a following in the state’s capital city.

Saturday’s intriguing matchup brings in two Big 12 teams with identical records. Both are 6-2 on the season, and 3-2 in league competition. In a tremendously balanced league, both teams hold out remote hopes of getting into position to claim a share of the league title in the revamped conference format where the teams all play each other.

For the Longhorns, the game is the first of the final third of a season that has featured two dramatic last minute come-from-behind wins and a frustrating (though exciting) last minute loss to West Virginia. It is another step that Texas hopes to take as it continues its road back from a 5-7 season in 2010. Rebuilding is never easy, it doesn’t ever come as quickly as you would like. The wind turbines along the road are a testimony to that. They can churn out lots of energy, and folks are working daily to get it channeled into the right place.

And when Texas ends its day here on Saturday, the folks in burnt orange hope that Lubbock is in the rear view mirror – a challenge dispatched as if it were gone with the wind.

10.28.2012 | Football

Bill Little commentary: A moment for the soul

Oct. 28, 2012

Bill Little, Texas Media Relations

LAWRENCE, Kan. — Some people live for the moment; some moments live because of the people. All season long, Mack Brown and his co-offensive coordinator Bryan Harsin have insisted that the 2012 Texas Longhorns had two capable quarterbacks. Sophomore starter David Ash had pitched Texas to five wins in its first seven games. Junior Case McCoy had spent most of those games on a headset in communication with Harsin, joining freshman Conner Brewer in signaling in plays.

When he came to Texas from Boise State, Harsin described the role of the backup quarterback in his system. “He will be on the headset and play every play as if he were in the game. He has to know exactly what we are trying to do. He has to prepare as if he is going to play every down, even though he may never get into the game,” Harsin said.

Every day at practice, the two quarterbacks split the offensive snaps, and both work with the No. 1 offense. All summer, as he worked in the off-season, McCoy worked hours with football strength and conditioning coach Bennie Wylie. He gained more than 20 pounds of muscle. He renewed his love affair with the game of football, and he committed to do whatever he could to help his teammates win. He and Ash were selected as members of the team’s leadership committee, which offers input on the celebratory good days and togetherness in the moments of concern.

Regardless of how hard the coaches tried to paint an accurate picture, it was impossible for a very young team to understand the task they were facing in Saturday’s trip to Lawrence. In the original Big 12, Texas visited Lawrence every four years. This year the game fell on the schedule after a rugged four-game league string that included games with Oklahoma State, West Virginia, Oklahoma and Baylor. The fans and the media had long ago written off the Jayhawks, and despite what they had been told, the team likely was taking a collective deep breath between that gauntlet and next Saturday’s visit to Texas Tech in Lubbock.

And for much of the game, that is how they played. Mack Brown had seen it before. In the much discussed victory here in 2004, Vince Young had to extract Texas from the jaws of defeat in the closing seconds, converting an unimaginable fourth and eighteen into a first down on the game winning drive that help carry the Horns to their first ever Rose Bowl appearance.

I remember my time as a reporter for the Austin American-Statesman standing in a Rice locker room in 1965 when the legendary Jess Neely’s Owls (a 24-point underdog) had upset a Texas team which had been ranked No. 1 the week before. When he was asked how he could explain the fact that his team had defied the “experts” and beaten Texas, Neely looked the reporter squarely in the eye and asked in his finest Southern drawl, “Who are the ex-purts? There are no ex-purts when young boys get together and play.”

Sadly, in a world where cynics and critics get mired in the morose, it is easy to diminish the joy of success. And when Texas needed a hero, all of a sudden, here came Case McCoy.

“It wasn’t anything that David didn’t do,” he would say after the game. “We just needed to go score.” He had done as Harsin had asked. He had watched and listened. He had remained committed to his school and his teammates, and had heard his head coach tell the team which was trailing at half 14-7 that they had to believe. What he found was, believing is contagious. He believed, and others believed in him.

The game has started easily enough — in fact probably too easy — for the Texas offense. Texas had converted a 43-yard drive on its first possession into a 7-0 lead. But when Kansas got its run game going and scored on consecutive second quarter drives, the Jayhawks took control. Four times between late in the first quarter through midway through the third, Texas started drives inside Kansas territory. One ended with a Jayhawk goal line stand at the one, the other two with interceptions. The second one of those brought Harsin, the offensive staff and Brown to take the headset off of McCoy and tell him to warm up.

Texas had the ball at its own 16 yard line when McCoy came into the game. In seven plays, he engineered a scoring drive that tied the game at 14-14 with just less than ten minutes to play. Kansas, however, answered. Grudgingly, the Texas defense surrendered 61 yards on 14 plays as the Jayhawks used seven minutes and thirteen seconds to drive to a field goal that made it 17-14.

When D.J. Monroe returned the kickoff to the Texas 30, only two minutes and twenty-two seconds remained. As McCoy and his teammates came back onto the field, Texas was seventy yards away from the north end zone. The significance was not lost on the Longhorn faithful who had been in Lawrence eight years ago. Case McCoy was driving his team toward the same place that Vince Young had made history in 2004 with a fourth down play and a touchdown pass.

But when his first pass fell just short of a possible interception, another was incomplete and the third went for only four yards, security folks were scurried into place to help prevent the KU students from rushing the field. It was a celebration that would never come.

As Case remembers it, he was in the fourth grade at Jim Ned Elementary in Tuscola and Jaxon Shipley was in the third grade at Rotan the first time the two ever played catch with a football. The early morning cold was turning into a sunshiny chill as Texas broke the huddle. Jaxon Shipley cut across the middle, toward the east side and the Texas bench. He knew if he could get open, McCoy would somehow find him. It may seem a long way from West Texas to the plains of Kansas, but for two kids who have grown up to fit into those white “storm trooper” Texas road uniforms, it really isn’t very far at all. “McCoy to Shipley.” Has a ring to it. And 18 yards downfield, Jaxon had a first down at the Kansas 48.

Mike Davis has embraced the fact that his middle name is “Magic,” and two plays later he was streaking past the Kansas bench down the left sideline when McCoy — with the strength of all that off-season work — laid a perfectly thrown pass into his arms at full stride. He ran 39 yards to the three. It would be third and goal from the one when McCoy dropped back to pass after a brilliant run fake. The senior tight end D. J. Grant had drifted into the end zone all alone as the Jayhawks tried to duplicate their goal line stand of earlier in the game. Allen Field House — Kansas’ basketball arena, which is four blocks to the south — was closer than the nearest defender as Grant cradled the victory and Anthony Fera kicked the extra point with twelve seconds remaining.

Texas had won, 21-17.

The Longhorns will take the victory and continue to work on getting better. The victory may have been a lot harder to get than it probably should have been, and it would be wrong to discount a Kansas team which fought so hard and came so close. There is nothing in sport that matches the joy of a comeback, particularly one that occurs when the odds seem against you.

The blessed ones are those who do, in fact, live for that moment and embrace that role. It is for the rest of us to celebrate them and respect them. It gives us a chance to feel good because in playing a kids’ game, they have excelled, and achieved. That is part of the human spirit, which transcends to heart, and resides in the soul.

10.21.2012 | Football

Bill Little commentary: Dedication day

Oct. 21, 2012

Bill Little, Texas Media Relations

The loudest cheers in the celebratory Longhorn locker room following the 56-50 victory over Baylor in Darrell K Royal-Texas Memorial Stadium Saturday night didn’t come from the words of the coaches and players, nor from the exhilarating presence and comments from Admiral William McRaven or Nike’s Phil Knight.

Dwarfed in stature by the large people who play the game, two little boys – ages seven and eight – stood bravely as their stories were told. And the roar came when the players learned that one of them was now free from cancer.

There are those who say some folks can’t see the forest for the trees, so let me help you folks. For these kids who had just seen their first football game on this Dedication Day, this was their forest. And they were the trees.

All week, the Texas players had worked to shed the memory of a bad experience in Dallas and replace it with a determination to play this Baylor game for multiple purposes. By their nature, football players and coaches are competitors. It is not a game for the timid or the weak. Redemption comes only with the next kickoff. So in that sense, the game was going to be about pride.

Dating back to his years at North Carolina, Mack Brown has always picked one game where his staff and players would dedicate their week’s efforts to someone who has made a special difference in their lives. So when the staff picked this game, team members and coaches chose someone in their lives who had been stricken with some form of cancer. It wasn’t hard, as the booming voice of KOKE-FM’s Bob Cole reminded the crowd via the public address Saturday, over 105,000 people in Texas – more than the stadium’s capacity – will be diagnosed with the disease this year.

So all week as they prepared for the game, the players were asked to call the person for whom they were playing the game and tell them they were dedicating their efforts Saturday night for them. Mack made it highly personal. He would be coaching for his younger brother back home in Cookeville, TN, who is battling leukemia.

Adm. McRaven, who was honored as a Texas Exes distinguished alum, served as the honorary captain. He had spoken to the team on Saturday morning, and brought an insight of the lessons of life that the players were learning with their experiences – good and bad – through the game that they played. The head of U.S. Special Forces and a true American hero, McRaven is a 1977 UT graduate. Knight, a former member of the University of Oregon track team who started Nike by selling shoes out of the trunk of his car, encouraged the team to see the future and grasp the challenge.

“Just do it,” he said, using the familiar Nike slogan to the delight of the team members.

Years ago in his younger days before his television show became an American icon, the late Andy Griffith did a comic record where a country bumpkin wanders into a crowd of folks in a stadium and is amazed by what he sees. The title was, “What It Was, Was Football.”

Those familiar with the game as it has existed through the years might question that after Saturday in DKR-Texas Memorial Stadium. What is becoming more obvious each week is that the game that we have all known as college football is evolving into something very different. Some have called it “basketball on turf.” Saturday, it was more like a tennis match, with teams serving blistering aces and the victor being the one who has a two score lead when the cannon sounds and the Tower turns orange on the big TV screen extending from the Freddie Steinmark scoreboard.

If purists of what the game was are frustrated with what it has become, they are awash in a sea of excitement from the folks who are happily riding the roller coaster of the present. If you didn’t have fun at the game Saturday, you are hard to please.

The mark of a competitor is not that they never lose (and sometimes even get hammered), it is what they do about it. Phil Knight told the team about an incident where one of his Nike spokespersons had missed a shot that cost his team a league playoff game. Hours after the contest was over, folks noticed a light on in the film room. And there sat a young player named Michael Jordan, staring at a television monitor. The tape had long since run out, and all that was on that screen was snow. But in his mind, Jordan still saw, and the record shows he went out to fix it.

That was the mantra of Texas last week. Did the team practice harder? Maybe. Did the coaches spend more time trying to figure out what went wrong and how to fix it? Absolutely. Most of all, they did what teams do. They pulled together and played for each other.

And they played for those whom they loved.

The offense reached the balance the coaches have been seeking. The `Horns rushed for 251 yards and threw for 275, for a total output of 525 yards. Six different players, starting with running back Daje Johnson‘s 84-yard touchdown run on the first play and including five touchdowns by running back Joe Bergeron and the first in the career of freshman sensation running back Jonathan Gray, had rushing yards. Quarterback David Ash completed 19 of 31 passes for 274 yards and one TD, and ten different players caught those passes. Mike Davis led with six catches for 148 yards, including a 67-yarder that set up a score.

One of the unsung heroes of this victory will be punter Alex King, who dropped three of his four punts inside the 20. Nick Rose kicked off nine times, with six of them sailing out of the end zone, and it would be wrong not to mention the placement kick effort led by Anthony Fera, who was rock-solid after an injury plagued early season. And let’s not forget the special teams effort which helped D. J. Monroe on his way to a 70 yard kickoff return that set up one of the oh-so-critical answers to a Baylor score.

Defense, where it is battling to win in a shutout or a shootout, always comes down to personal accountability. Perhaps nowhere in team sport is their more of a “mano a mano” atmosphere. It is the defensive back against the receiver, the linebacker guarding the middle, and the defensive line trying to stuff the other team at the line. And in a game where it seemed that no one was going to “break serve” (to use the tennis analogy), it would be the defense which would turn the day.

Late in the third quarter, Baylor trailed 49-43. For one of the few times, the Texas offense had gone three-and-out. The Bears had almost reached midfield when linebacker Steve Edmond knocked the ball loose from Baylor’s Glasco Martin and safety Mykkele Thompson recovered at the BU 46.

With Gray and Bergeron doing the pounding, Texas had reached the Bear 15 when Ash hit Davis on a screen pass that resulted in a TD and a 56-43 lead.

Midway through the final quarter, King pinned the Bears at their own six, and the `Horns’ young defense fought and scratched and clawed trying to stop the nation’s No. 1 offense as Baylor drove 94 yards in 15 plays to cut the lead to 56-50. But though Baylor scored, the defense had held long enough. It took the usually quick-strike Bears five minutes and twenty four seconds to drive for the TD. Still, with 1:57 remaining, it would be up to the special teams and the offense to seal the victory.

They did that, recovering the on-side kick attempt, and running out the clock as the Bears watched helplessly after exhausting their time outs.

Texas had won because it scored more points than the other team. It is standard procedure for the Longhorns to take a win and try to get better after it, so the players expect another week of solid practice. At 5-2, each game is critical in the Longhorns’ quest to take another step forward on its way up from the disappointing season of 2010. It is still a very, very young team, and one which has had an inordinate number of injuries defensively.

But the players, the coaches and the staff who fought through the week will not forget their journey. They answered their critics who said they had no heart with a courage and determination within the confines of a game. They showed cynics who said they did not compete that they were not afraid to fight.

Most of all, however, they made a game that could have been meaningless something to remember. It wasn’t battle, because they do that in war. It wasn’t about overcoming disaster, because sport should never be mistaken for the real definition of that word.

Instead, this was entirely personal – about you and the guy next to you. It was about something that you alone could do that might make someone’s day a little better, and doing it in their honor.

And if you missed that, then you really can’t see the forest…or the tree.

09.30.2012 | Football

Bill Little commentary: Still waters run deep

Sept. 30, 2012

Bill Little, Texas Media Relations

STILLWATER, Okla. — Only a few hands had gone up in the Longhorn team meeting room on Thursday when Mack Brown asked his young team how many of them had ever been to Stillwater. And yet, there they were fighting for the right to swagger in front of a hostile bright-orange crowd and a mega-national television audience.

And before it was over, they would need to dig deep into their team theme for 2012 in order to pull out a showcase victory over the Oklahoma State Cowboys Saturday night. They had to be relentless; they had to have intensity; and the necessity for emotion had never been more prevalent. But to get to “swagger” it appeared they darn near needed a miracle.

In the incredible run Mack Brown‘s teams have had in Stillwater, it had seemed each dramatic win featured a stellar performance that identified a hero. This time, in a season which has focused on the “team” identity of this particular band of brothers, there would be many. Over and over again, they have heard from speakers and from Special Forces Green Beret teammate Nate Boyer that you have to fight for the guy on your right and on your left.

And that is what they did.

Clinging to a 34-33 lead in the final three minutes of the game, Brown had told his defense, “Hold them to a field goal, and the offense is going to drive down and win the game.” And he told his offense, “They are going to hold them to a field goal, and we are going to drive down and win they game.”

It would appear that swagger had arrived in Stillwater, because that is exactly what happened.

Three times in the game, including twice in the fourth quarter, the Longhorns had to fight from behind. The drama, however, went beyond that. Texas won the game because it kept the ball for almost two thirds of the game (36:36 minutes to 23:24), ran 80 plays to 67 for Oklahoma State, and moved the chains for first downs in the most critical situations.

In a game where big plays dotted the landscape, it would be the third and fourth down conversions that would spell the difference. Texas was 9 of 17 on third downs, but when you figure that UT was successful on three of three fourth down tries, the end result was that the ‘Horns made first downs on 12 of the 17 times they faced a third down.

While much deserved credit goes to high profile players in such a win, Brown was clear in the locker room that this had been a team win with contributions from each of the 70 players who made the trip, as well as the coaches and the support staff. Sophomore quarterback David Ash completed 30 of 37 passes for 304 yards and three touchdowns. Eight different receivers caught passes, seven of them at least three. The only guy with one catch may have been the one with the most important catch of the season. Senior Tight end D. J. Grant’s only reception came on a perfect throw on a great route on fourth down that went for 29 yards on the ‘Horns’ game winning drive.

Jaxson Shipley stepped into the spotlight, with three TD catches – two in the first quarter. But as good as Shipley and fellow receivers Mike Davis and Marquise Goodwin were, the coaches would rave afterward about the blocking, particularly that of the young receivers.

Each game this season, senior D. J. Monroe has filled that admonition Brown has used over and over again – figure out your role to help this team win. Not only did Monroe had some key runs, his 100-yard TD kickoff return answered a tying OSU score in the first quarter.

The defense, playing short-handed because of key injuries, struggled at times, but still stiffened to hold OSU to three field goals on three second half drives that carried into or near the red zone. And it would be wrong to overlook the punting of Alex King, who pinned the Cowboys inside their own 20 of three of his four punts.

With the fireworks that happened through the first three quarters, it seems close to incomprehensible that the game could match or double that intensity in the final fifteen minutes. With Texas leading, 28-26 as the final stanza started, Oklahoma State mounted an eight play, 89 yard drive to take a 33-28.

Nine minutes and thirty-six seconds remained in the game when the Longhorns unveiled their secret weapon, freshman running back Jonathan Gray. Gray, who saw more action because of an injury to Malcolm Brown, joined the fray with four straight runs that took Texas from the OSU 31 to the one, from whence Joe Bergeron scored the first of his two late touchdowns to put Texas in front, 34-33. But a critical two-point conversion pass failed, and when Oklahoma State started at its own 35 with 5:48 remaining, the Cowboys only needed a field goal from the very reliable Quinn Sharp to take the lead.

Grudgingly, the defense saw the Cowboys use seven plays to march to the UT 9, from whence Sharp kicked a 24 yard field goal for a 36-34 lead. Only two minutes and thirty-four seconds were left in the game.

Historically, game winning drives begin with a successful first play. That did not happen after Sharp kicked out of the end zone and Ash threw incomplete. Senior running back Jeremy Hills took a third down pass to the UT 29 before being stopped. It was fourth down and six yards to go.

The road to Stillwater had been long for D. J. Grant. Injured his first two years, the senior from LBJ High School in Austin, had battled through injury to star briefly as he took three TD passes from Case McCoy last year at UCLA. Grant came off a block, slid into the linebacker area and got a step on the defender and Ash nailed him perfectly. By the time Grant had run away and up field for 29 yards, the crowd in Boone Pickens Stadium had grown anxious. Shortly before the play, the stadium’s namesake, T. Boone Pickens, had made a triumphal trip down the ramp to the field, anticipating the victory.

Ash hit Hills again on a short pass, and the senior running back got out of bounds to stop the clock at the Oklahoma State 37. The next play would perhaps be the defining moment for receiver Mike Davis. Struggling a year ago, Davis had beaten Oklahoma State’s top defender down the right sideline, and then he out-jumped him and came down with the ball at the Oklahoma State five-yard line. Two plays later, Joe Bergeron plowed in for the game winning score. After Nick Jordan‘s kick, it was 41-36.

The game still would not be over until the Texas defense held on a multi-lateral final play.

Folks love college football, partly because of its unpredictability. Coaches play to win, but they also play because it is their job as teachers to develop young men and help them grow up.

That was the real story in the midst of the sea of contrasting oranges Saturday night on the plains of north central Oklahoma. Both teams played well, and both fought hard to win. Neither was perfect, and there are still things to correct and to improve as the rugged season continues for Texas. But for the first time on a mission to return to the elite company of the nation’s top football teams, Texas won a close game to stay unbeaten.

And perhaps most important, you can’t pick just one hero. This one, instead, was a win for a team.

09.28.2012 | Football

Bill Little commentary: In search of the next hero

Sept. 28, 2012

Bill Little, Texas Media Relations

STILLWATER, OK – Longtime television personality Ron Franklin remembers a perfect autumn afternoon in the 1960s when only the rustle of a bird’s wings broke the placid Americana scene of college football.

The bird was the mascot of the Air Force Academy, and the Oklahoma State home crowd sat spellbound as the Falcon soared through the azure blue heavens as the half-time show of the afternoon game between the two schools. At that precise moment, what appeared to be an aged pigeon chose to leave its perch in Gallagher Hall, the gym at the east end of the football field.

Taking its commands from the whistle of the Cadet falconer, the USAF bird seemed to stop in mid-flight. While the pigeon was taking its version of an afternoon stroll, the falcon saw one thing: dinner. Ignoring its keeper’s commands, the falcon hit the pigeon in mid-flight over the field. Feathers flew everywhere, and the falcon raced away. It returned two days later.

That was a different, quieter time in Stillwater. Now, the feathers have turned to frenzy. The stands are full of bright-orange clad fans, and the program has restored the respect it once had over 50 years ago.

Ever since Mack Brown‘s Longhorns rode Hodges Mitchell’s 80-yard TD run on the opening play of the 1999 game to a comfortable 34-21 victory, Texas has needed more escapes to get out of Stillwater alive than the gal who used to be chained to the railroad tracks in the old Saturday afternoon movie serials. And in each win, it seems a Longhorn legend had to rise to the occasion and play a part. They used to say that the Texas-Oklahoma game in Dallas “makes” heroes. The Texas-OSU series in Stillwater has “revealed” them.

Prior to Oklahoma State’s emergence as a power in the Big 12 in recent years, the Longhorns came into Stillwater as heavy favorites in almost all of the six victories here in the Mack Brown era. The 21st Century began with the emergence of Cedric Benson as a star in 2001. Benson got his first start in Stillwater that season, and after falling behind early, Texas would go on to claim a 45-17 victory. From there, things would get more interesting.

In 2003, the Longhorns were ranked No. 11 nationally, but trailed, 16-14 to Oklahoma State at halftime. The defense and special teams became huge factors in the second half, but the Longhorns got inspiration from wide receiver Roy Williams, who caught a short pass and dragged five Cowboy defenders ten yards before finally coming to a stop. Texas went on to win, 55-16.

The next visit – 2005 – produced perhaps the most improbable scene of all of them. Texas was on a mission during its quest to play in the BCS National Championship game. Oklahoma State was winless in the Big 12. Even given the `Horns’ slow starts of the past in Stillwater, the crowd at what was now known as T. Boone Pickens Stadium and a national television audience, watched in disbelief as OSU took a 19-point lead in the first half. The deficit marked the second-largest UT had ever faced where the Longhorns had come back to win. As the first half ended, it was 28-12.

There was no panic in the Longhorn locker room. The `Horns’ offensive coordinator told his junior quarterback Vince Young, “Keep them focused.” To which Young replied, “We’re fine, baby.” When the two teams left their respective locker rooms in the renovated Gallagher-Iba Hall, the Longhorns were far from the loping pigeon waiting to be attacked by the falcon. Instead, Oklahoma State was surprised to find the Texas team was singing.

Three plays into the second half, the frenzied crowd learned why. Texas was at its own 20-yard line when Young brought his team to the line of scrimmage. He dropped back, headed to his right, pump-faked a Cowboy defender off his feet, and took off down the sideline.

In the Texas bench area, Mack Brown looked at the down-and-distance marker. When he saw Young break past the line of scrimmage, he remarked in the headset to Davis: “He’s going to get the first down.” Davis, who had a full view of the play from the press box, replied, “Oh, he’s gonna get a lot more than that.”

Young covered the eighty yards in just thirty-six steps, an amazing average of six-feet, eight-inches per stride. That’s like stepping cleanly over a prone basketball power forward with each stride. The run set the tempo for the second half, which would result in a Longhorn landslide of thirty-five unanswered points and a 47-28 victory.

Texas, of course, went on to win the National Championship that season.

Two years later, Young and most of his cohorts were gone. But that didn’t lessen the drama any. In 2007, Texas – ranked 14th nationally at the time – found itself trailing the Cowboys, 14-0 in the first quarter. And things didn’t get any better. Think “dire” and “disaster” and you can get a feel for how things were. The third quarter was just ending, and Texas – which had trailed by three touchdowns most of the game – was looking at the wrong end of a 35-14 score. Colt McCoy was the quarterback, and he was paired with a junior running back who was also a track star.

Oh, the Horns were down by 21 points in that fourth quarter, true enough…but the cavalry was about to arrive. The week before, Jamaal Charles had rushed for 216 yards and three touchdowns in the fourth quarter in a come-from-behind win over Nebraska. Now, on the road in Stillwater, he was saddling up his pony again.

And Texas was about to steal the game from the frustrated Cowboys. Charles would score on touchdown runs of 18 and 75 yards, and run for 125 yards on just seven carries over the final 15 minutes. The stunned crowd in Boone Pickens Stadium watched helpless as Colt McCoy – who went 8-of-9 in the fourth quarter (including eight straight at one point) for 145 yards and a TD – completed a 60-yard strike to Jordan Shipley to set up Vondrell McGee’s one-yard TD run that tied the game at 35-all with 3:22 left. On the game’s final play, Ryan Bailey kicked a game winning, 40-yard field goal to complete 24 unanswered points in the 38-35 victory. Texas dominated the frame, scoring on drives of 59, 99, 91 and 57 yards.

Defensively, the Horns stood tall down the stretch as well. After allowing TD drives on four of the first seven drives of the game, UT held the Cowboys scoreless over the final 21:20 of the game (five drives). Marcus Griffin (12 tackles) led a group of four Longhorns that recorded double-digit tackles. Roddrick Muckelroy posted 11 tackles and a forced fumble, while Rashad Bobino and Ishie Oduegwu each notched 10 stops.

So as the Longhorns prepared for their trip here last weekend, it came as no surprise to learn that Charles – now a star running back for the Kansas City Chiefs – had overcome a leg injury from last season and was back to his old form. The former Longhorn joined Pro Hall of Famer Jim Brown as the only men to ever rush for 225 yards (he had 233), and catch passes for 50 yards (he had 55) in the same game.

The next trip, during the 2009 campaign to the BCS Championship game, found the No. 2 ranked `Horns prevailing over the No. 13 Cowboys, 41-14. With the revamping of the Big 12 after the departures of Nebraska and Colorado, the two teams have since played back to back games in Austin.

This time, this young Texas team is in the process of sorting out its stars. There are no proven “go-to” guys such as Roy Williams, Vince Young, Jamaal Charles, Colt McCoy or Jordan Shipley. After each practice, as Mack Brown gathers his team around him, he constantly reminds them that each player needs to be ready to do whatever they can do to help Texas win.

One of the great things about college football is not the known – but the unknown. The surprises which turn a pleasant day in Oklahoma into feathers, or frenzy.

09.09.2012 | Football

Bill Little commentary: Just for the fun of it

Bill Little, Texas Media Relations

The day had started with a crispness – a cool morning driven by a strong north wind.

The early evening had brought the music and the crowd, the burnt orange cast across a perfect sky at sunset. There, under the Saturday night lights of the big stadium, was a bushel-basket full of old memories and new dreams, all mixed together in the experience we call college football.

There were cheerleaders from as far back as 40 years ago, some of whom came dressed in their vintage uniforms. The Alumni Band, with its repertoire of obligatory songs, marched proudly. The old guy with the baton got almost as big a cheer as he tossed it and caught it, as did quarterback David Ash when he ran for a career long 49 yard touchdown to open the scoring for the home team in the 45-0 victory over New Mexico.

Earl Campbell had walked – under the watchful eye of football strength and conditioning coach Bennie Wylieand his assistant Caesar Martinez – to midfield as an honorary captain for the coin flip in pre-game. Mack Brown would call it “chilling” to see the former star out the day before, practicing step-by-step, to return to a place where he was once the most feared running back in all of college football. If the Longhorn faithful involved themselves in Vince Young’s run to beat Southern Cal in the BCS National Championship game and willed Justin Tucker‘s immortal field goal to victory over Texas A&M in the final game ever in that historic series….it wasn’t close to the more than 100,000 who pulled with Earl, every step of the way.

When the old had been celebrated, it was time for the new, and the 2012 Longhorns are perhaps college football’s best example of that. Now 2-0 on the season and with only six seniors figuring in the playing mix, this is the youngest team in the Mack Brown era.

New Mexico, under the capable instruction of the respected Bob Davie, even brought a “retro” look to the game as it utilized a 21st century version of the triple option Wishbone Offense which Darrell Royal made famous with two national championships in 1969 and 1970. And for a while, the Lobos showed why that offense can still be a defensive coordinator’s worst nightmare. New Mexico executed it well, and kept the ball for two thirds of the first half.

But Saturday wasn’t about nightmares. After a season of disappointment in 2010 and of ups and downs at home in 2011, football was fun again in Austin.

A year ago, the team spoke of the building blocks of “brick by brick.” Against New Mexico, it was clear that the construction job was very much into its second phase – still a distance from being finished, but a long way from where it began last September.

Mack Brown has said many times that you can coach a team a lot harder after a win than you can after a loss. Mistakes are correctable. Losses are irreversible. The psychologists will tell you that Austin (with apologies to the fans of other schools who really don’t care) takes on a different feeling after a Texas victory. It wasn’t just the delightfully cool morning Sunday that prompted breakfast at the local restaurants and brought a spring in the step of folks on the trail at Lady Bird Lake.

While football is a team game, its attraction of “star power” to its followers is unmistakable, and that is one of the things that separates the 2012 Longhorns. Offensively and defensively – despite its youth and inexperience – this team is developing players the fans can relate to. David Ash and Case McCoy are household names already, and each time guys such as Daje Johnson and Jonathan Gray touch the ball, folks slide to the edge of their seats. The “veterans” such as Jaxon Shipley, Mike Davis, D. J. Monroe, D. J. Grant, Marquise Goodwin and Malcolm Brown and Joe Bergeron are supplemented regularly with the players who flash into the scene with promise. And all of those are successful because of an offensive line with grows with every game.

Saturday’s game turned (as most games do) on the defense and kicking game. A blocked kick and a huge punt return set up two of the three first half scores. And in the second half, a defense led by seniors Kenny Vaccaro and Alex Okafor and underclassmen such as Jordan Hicks, Carrington Byndom, Quandre Diggs and Jackson Jeffcoat combined to snuff out the Lobos. The days when people talked about a “no name” defense are long gone in an era of electronic media and the Longhorn Network. It is a throwback to the days when freshmen were not eligible for the varsity and fans and media learned of them watching a five-game freshman season. Now, players arrive with a certain pedigree, and quickly have a chance to make their own name in the exposure that is available.

All of that, of course, combines under the umbrella of “team.” When Mack Brown pointed out that the Longhorns stalled after taking a 31-9 lead over Wyoming and didn’t put the game out of reach so that everybody would have a chance to play, the team embraced his admonishment to “turn it up” when you get a team down.

Saturday night, Texas turned it up. The reflected joy in the locker room was a unity drill.

There will be tough times ahead in a Big 12 schedule that is perhaps the roughest-top to bottom-in recent league history for the `Horns. Adversity begins next Saturday with a late 8:15 p. m. kickoff against Ole Miss in Oxford.

But what happened Saturday night gave the coaches and the team a lot to build on, and it went beyond planning and execution, blocking and tackling, throwing, running and catching. Saturday night was about fun. And if you are to play this game and play it well, that is what you have to have.