Is The Texas Longhorns, The Big 12 Team To Beat?

Written By: mike on September 14, 2010 No Comment

The 2009-2010 Texas Longhorns once again showed why they are the Big 12 team to beat. They had a perfect regular season including a win over the Big 12 North champs Nebraska that ended with every single fan hanging off their seat. They finished the season Number two overall in the AP poll, not being able to obtain the national championship over Alabama. For Texas though, the 09-10 season was one to be remembered for the ages.

They began their season against the University of Louisiana-Monroe. In front of over 100,000 roaring fans they routed ULM 59-20 on opening weekend. In week two Texas stepped their defense up another step by beating the Wyoming Cowboys 41-10. Some people might argue that they had easy opponents in their first two games, but by the end of week two, Colt McCoy had 600 yards passing, and 5 TD’s. Not a bad way to start his senior year. Next the longhorns took on Texas Tech who they were looking to cash in some redemption on. Tech, the previous season, had a last second touchdown which made the score 39-33 and knocked UT out of the championship race. The scoring opened up with a punt return for a touchdown by Jordon Shipley, and Texas never lifted there foot of the gas winning 34-24.

Coming off a feel good win against Texas Tech, the longhorns came up against UTEP who they had only played twice before. But putting that small amount of unfamiliarity aside Texas opened the flood gates to win 64-7, 47 of those points coming in the first half. The team hit some black ice the next week in the form of the Colorado Buffaloes. Although they won 38-14, they struggled early and there poor play resulted in them dropping from number 2 to number 3 in the AP poll. That did not sit well with the team or the fans considering they were playing their rival Oklahoma the next week.

The game started off very similar to the previous week with Oklahoma being up 6-0. The game became very defensive, and very physical. The two teams did not like each other and made that very clear. The battle ensued between the two teams in a tie until the fourth quarter when Texas kicked a field goal to make it 16-13 which would be the final score. They followed up the next week with a solid 41-7 win over Missouri. Colt McCoy had another 3 TD day.

Finally Texas was slotted to play the highest ranking team out of any they had played yet. Oklahoma State was supposed to bring it, but the ones who brought it were the Longhorns defense who picked off the OSU QB four times to complete a 41-14 victory. The next week against UCF the running game did next to nothing only getting fifty yards the whole game. Fortunately McCoy passed for 470 yards and Jordon Shipley set a school record with 273 yards receiving.

In their final two games of the regular season Texas kept their momentum going. Against Kansas, McCoy once again came up big 396 yards and 4 TD’s and became the most winning quarterback in college history. Needless to say Colt was having an amazing year. Next, against Texas A&M, the Longhorns capped off an amazing regular season with a strong 48-39 win.

They were now slotted to go up against Nebraska to decide the Big 12 Champion. It was a hard fought battle, and came down to the last play to determine the victor. With one play left, Nebraska leading 12-10, McCoy rolled out right threw the ball away and it appeared that that was the end of the game. However an official ruling came through that the ball that was thrown away hit the ground with 00:01 seconds left. This allowed Texas to line up for a field goal and Hunter Lawrence nailed a 46 yard field goal to completely upset the Cornhuskers to go to the National Championship game.

With their second National Championship game in four years Texas was very confident going into the game. That confidence was shaken, though, when Colt McCoy who had been so good the entire year was knocked out of the game with an injury on only the fifth play of their first possession. So Garret Gilbert came in and Alabama jumped all over the true freshmen causing problems for him all day. On the defensive side of things, they just could not find an answer for future Heisman trophy winner Mark Ingram and his back up Trent Richardson, who ran for over two hundred combined yards. Although there were some flashes of hope from Jordon Shipley, who caught two touchdowns, Texas could not recover and ultimately lost 21-37.

The Texas Longhorns had an amazing season highlighted by many players who gave there all to make the team as good as it could be. Even though they lost a handful of important players they made a statement that they would be bringing it every Saturday for a long time to come.