I don't know. He will probably say we had chances and we didn't take advantage. There really shouldn't be any excuses. It's not like this is a one time thing. The Brown era has been full of chokes.
OMG, down 19 in the 3rd, now up 4 with 6:00 left in the 4th. Major's 32 for 49, 397 yards, 4 TD's, 3 INT's Unbelievable.
27 4th quarter points. Biggest Texas comeback ever. Hell of a way to finish a career. But no more Holiday Bowls - these close games will drive me crazy.
And you know, Cody Pickett makes Chris Simms look like Major Applewhite. Not the headiest of players.
What a game-- maybe the best I've ever seen. Congrats go out to Major, Ivan, DJ, and all of the guys who showed so much heart after getting down 36-17. I really thought at halftime that Simms might/should go in cause Major had a rough first half... I've never been more thrilled in my life to be wrong. Who said Texas can't perform when the pressure is on? HOOK 'EM!!!!!
I'm with pued, too close for me, but we won, major went out in style, and watch out next yr and beyond MACK CAN WIN THE BIG ONE BOYS!!!!!!!!!
What a game. Major also broke the school's record for passing yards in a game which he already owned. Whoever plays QB at UT in the future will always be compared to the greatest QB ever to wear burnt orange. His owns 40 plus records...don't think any of those will be broken soon. Props to Reese and the defense for coming up big in the 3rd quarter. I think UW was stopped 5 drives in a row. DJ's int gave the offense a short field to take the lead. Ivan Williams the forgotten back came up big as well. So did BJ and Roy. Hopefully the win doesn't prevent changes from being made - fire GD. Mack and the team needs to be congratulated for putting Texas back in the top 10 and getting us 11 wins for only the 5th time in school history. It was UT's first bowl win outside Texas since 1965. And what's supposed to be the best recruiting class ever for Mack at UT is coming in. We took some baby steps tonight. Big win for Mack. Importantly its progress. Things are looking really good.
Kinda cool to read through this thread and see all the swings in emotion when you already know how it turned out. A few things. 1. Fire Greg Davis. What's weird is occasionally he'll call a play that does good but never go back to it or anything similar to it. Running the friggin' ball twice on 1st and 2nd downs when you're at the 15 and UW has been stopping the run so far does not equal good idea. It was probably good we got down so much because then we had to throw and that's when the offense shines. Screw balance, just put points on the board. Our O-line seems to suck at run blocking a lot, but Major was pretty well protected. Utilize your strengths. We don't have some of the best receivers in the country for nothing. 2. Hey Carl Reese, pressure on the qb is not optional against a quality opponent. I mean what the hell, UW was absolutely slaughtering us during that one stretch and we still tried nothing to get pressure on the qb. Notice when we did they had 4 straight (5?) 3 and outs or the interception. Also, if we are playing so much man to man, shouldn't the D be able to get a little more pressure even w/o blitzes. Still, I wanted to see more pressure. Also, what was up with the 2 TD drives at the end of each half. My god, we just handed them 2 TD's on a nice silver platter. Screw the friggin' prevent or whatever it is that we played. 3. Major Applewhite = AWESOME. Damn I'm so glad to see him not only go out on top but go out on top with huge statistics and UT's biggest comeback ever to boot. It was beautiful. I'll admit I was a little nervous when the INT's started coming but I definitely didn't wanna see him out of the game (hey Bo, if you're not gonna catch it, at least don't tip it right to the other team). I'm glad Major didn't go out and I'm glad we finally won a big game. Damn that was a sweet game. And the rockets decided to win also to make the night even better.
The Holiday Bowl always seems like the most entertaining bowl every year. Too bad the Major wasn't in all year long cause it coulda been a Rose Bowl winter. The same Washington offense that was held to 7 points by Miami lit up Texas pretty good. The Texas defense is now definitely and conclusively O V E R R A T E D having given up 68 offensive points in the last two games.
That's because apparently, and I didn't realize this before, San Diego is a holding penalty free zone. It's rather hard to play defense when an offensive lineman is practically dry-humping you as you go after the QB. Hell, on Washington University's last TD, Maurice Gordon, I believe it was, nearly got his jersey torn off. If the officials call holding, Neither team gets that many points, nor that much offense. This is probably where the 8 redshirted lineman from last years class will step in, hopefully. And they look a lot better run-blocking for Cedric Benson than they do for Victor Ike(especially considering Davis' egregious misuse of Ike lo these many years)
Timing: do you consider Oklahoma's defense overrated as well? We gave up 36 offensive points to Washington last night. Oklahoma gave up 35 at home earlier this season to Kansas St., a team much worse than Washington. One game doesn't make a defense overrated. And no, the CU game where Simms repeatedly gave them the ball on the 20 isn't proof either. Have you also stopped to consider that maybe, just maybe, Texas was disappointed to be in this position? Remember Kansas St. a few years ago? They were one win away from the national championship. A&M barely beat them in the Big 12 game, and they fell from the Fiesta Bowl to the Alamo Bowl. They then lost the Alamo Bowl to unranked Purdue. Do you really think Purdue was better than Kansas St., or could it have had to do with the fact that they were disappointed not to be in the big game? That, imho, is what happened to Texas for a long while last night. But, Major or someone on that sideline got them pumped up when it was 36-17, and the defense turned it on just like that, stopping Washington five straight times. I'd still take this UT defense over any in the country, bar none.
Overrated is harsh. We do need to work on things such as lapses in concentration. UW had 7 turnovers vs. Miami. UW had no chance. Congrats to Miami! They sure did get a scare from Virginia Tech though despite the Hokies coughing it up 6 times. --- Texas gave up 444 yards to UW, but the defense made key stops late in the 3rd/early in the 4th allowing the offense to score 23 in a row. An overrated defense would have folded. I think Texas forced 2 Pickett ints during this period. Football is a game of momentum. Applewhite's 3 picks allowed UW to lead scoreboard in the first half however UT's defense was winning the battle of yardage. UW only had one long TD drive in the first half. The rest were FG's and an int returned for a TD. Unlike the CU game, Texas' defense was playing good. 3rd qtr, the defense did look slow but the offense wasn't helping them out by scoring - Greg Davis sucks. What happened in the 3rd qtr is something Reese and Brown are going have to look at, but I'm not going to take anything away from UW's offense. They had us fooled. Adjustments were made made though - important, and momentum swung back and forth and fortunately Texas came out on top. UW scored 3 TD's on long drives in the 2nd half (2 in the 3rd), the last one setting up the heroic comeback by Applewhite. The game was a lot a closer than it should have been, but I'm not going to use motivation as an excuse. Clearly there were lapses and there are going to be in a 60 min game. But we found a way to win.
The question now is: did the win save Greg Davis' job? I doubt he was going to be fired with a loss, but I'm 99% sure he won't be fired now. And that is sad. As long as GD is the OC, the offense will never reach its potential.
