Colt McCoy was one second away from costing his Longhorns a place in the BCS National Title game. Literally. In the most sloppy, poorly-played game I have seen Texas play in at least two or three years, McCoy made mistake after mistake and played himself out of the race for the Heisman trophy. As my friend and Texas alum said after the game had ended, “McCoy better give the game ball to his kicker, because he saved the game” and he was right.
The country’s most efficient passer, going into Saturday night, threw for 184 yards, completing 20 of 36 passes thrown (55.6 completion percentage was his second lowest of the season). The most telling stat was McCoy’s 0 TD throws and 3 interceptions. Mistake after mistake cost the Longhorns field position and momentum and forced their defense to spend more time on the field than they would have liked. Overall, the stingy Texas defense played well and forced the Cornhuskers into 16 3rd downs, allowing only two completions on a 3rd down all game.
The real shocker of the game was McCoy’s nearly gigantic mistake with time running out. There was 8 seconds on the clock, and instead of running the ball and calling a timeout to attempt a game-winning FG, McCoy scrambled out of the pocket and waited to throw the ball out of bounds until there was no time left on the clock. McCoy should send the booth officials a fruit basket, because they reviewed the play and added one second back onto the game clock, which led to a successful FG try and a walk-off Big 12 victory.
With Bama’s domination of Tebow and Florida earlier in the day, Texas will face off against Bama in CA for the BCS National Title, but will need to play much better if they want to have a chance against the SEC champion. Which Colt McCoy will show up in Pasadena? If it is the Heisman candidate, what a game it will be.
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