Swoopes!

I think I’m in love. Yes, I think I’m in love but I’m afraid to fall. We haven’t had a quarterback go out and win a game that was hanging in the balance around here since Colt McCoy was covering up a lot of Longhorn faults with his magnificent accuracy. Tyrone Swoopes not only went out and won the game, he won it twice, after more poor clock management by Strong and company, and a stunningly bad performance by the defense, forced him to come in with 22 seconds left and in a—“I guess I have to do everything moment”—threw two perfect passes to set up the game winning field goal. So here I am, swooning over Swoopes but fearing that he could turn back into the scared quarterback we saw a couple weeks ago against Baylor. Oh well, better to have love and lost, than never to have loved at all.

Clock Management
After Texas scored to go ahead 45-38 I got a text from a friend, “Good drive, glad we scored a TD but terrible clock management. This game should be over.” He was right. Let me explain.
With 3:52 left to play in the game, Texas faced a third and two at the 50 yard line. Swoopes completed a nine yard pass giving Texas a first down at the Iowa State 41, with 3:45 left to play. At that point, Strong, Watson, and Wickline have to be thinking beyond just getting the go ahead points, but they weren’t. On the Texas’s next four plays they snapped the ball with 16, 18, 16, and 11 seconds left on the play clock. If Swoopes had waited until two seconds on the play clock before snapping the ball on those four plays, Texas would have burned an additional 53 seconds off the clock, before Iowa State called timeout with Texas facing third and eight at the Iowa State 26 yard line. Iowa State called the timeout with 1:52 left. If Texas had managed the clock more effectively, there would have been less than a minute left at that point. Or, Iowa State would have been forced to use two or all three of their timeouts on the Texas drive. Either way, Iowa State would have been in a much more difficult predicament, behind by seven points, with one or no timeouts left with about a minute left to score the tying touchdown, or with two timeouts and only about :30 left to play. Strong, Watson, and Wickline should never have allowed Iowa State the ball back with 1:22 left and two timeouts. I hope they know that now.

Give Credit
Having criticized Strong and his staff, now I’ll praise them. What they have done with the offensive line and Tyrone Swoopes is first rate player development. That and Charlie Strong’s decision to try and win the game with :22 left in regulation bode well for the future of the program. Although I was hoping the Horns would have a much easier time with Iowa State, my hats off to the coaching staff for getting a win when things weren’t going according to plan.

HooK ‘eM,

W.E.

Over/Under Results
The Westchester Wildcats are on a roll. Mark Adams edged out Greg Swan, Zach Frank, and first time player D.R. Flower in the tiebreaker to take home is first win of the season. They were tied in regulation with eight correct answers. Young Zach’s performance this week comes on the heels of his victory in his rookie outing two weeks ago, and a tie for fourth last week.
Clayton Frink, David Frink, and Reed Ramlow tied for fourth with seven correct.