OU and Texas Football Teams Headed in Opposite Directions

There’s always a big story going into the Oklahoma/Texas game. Often the story is along the lines of “Whose national title hopes will be dashed?” This year, after both teams were upset in their conference openers by unranked teams, the story changed to “Who’s going to salvage their season by getting in the race for the Big XII South?”

After a tight game that went back and forth a couple times, OU won 28-21, moving them to 1-1 in Big XII play and dropping Texas to an unexpected 0-2. The rivalry win hopped the Sooners back up to 6th in the AP Polls and gave back some momentum that Colorado had stripped from them. Texas dropped to 23rd, and with the sloppy play against OU and the injuries that Texas has racked up, that slip down the polls doesn’t have a foreseeable end.

The game hinged on three critical Texas problems. The first was the offensive line's embarrassing lack of protection for Colt McCoy. A secondary that let Sam Bradford pick and choose his targets didn't help either. But it was the mental mistakes that really killed Texas: from the third-quarter fumble by Jamaal Charles on the five-yard-line as he rumbled toward the touchdown that would have put Texas up by six to the holding penalty that allowed the last four seconds to trickle harmlessly off the clock, sloppy mistakes at crucial junctures stopped Texas from winning.

Oklahoma didn’t play perfectly: the Sooners actually gave up more penalty yardage than Texas did. But they delivered in the clutch, where the Longhorns had mental lapses (including the incomprehensibly silly game-ending holding call). If they don't straighten out these problems, it could cost them much more than just a rivalry game.

To make things worse for the problem-plagued team, Texas announced this week that receiver Limas Sweed’s lingering left-wrist ligament problems have resulted in season-ending surgery. Not only is Colt McCoy banged up and subsequently under-confident - now he’ll be missing a big target for the rest of the season.

Thankfully for the Longhorns, Missouri is not on the 2007 schedule, leaving a Big XII schedule that isn’t deathly. But for a big team with injuries during the year of the upset, any signs of weakness could spell major trouble. Yeah, Nebraska has spent most of their time being a doormat in big games (including last Saturday’s 41-6 mashing by Missouri), but Texas Tech’s Graham Harrell has thrown for 2726 yards already. If the Texas secondary looks anything like it did against OU, it’s going to be look foolish against the combo of Harrell and Michael Crabtree.

Article Author: Stephen Carradini

Stephen Carradini is Editor-in-Chief of the independent music magazine Independent Clauses. He also writes humor as often as possible.

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