Reflections on a Great Day
Long time coming eh? This is the team and the game we’ve been awaiting for three years. I think most of us are hesitant to believe that the performance the Longhorns put on a very hot and humid day Saturday in the Cotton Bowl is the new norm.
Since the middle of the third quarter on Saturday I have been trying to figure out how Texas could suddenly play this well and what does it mean for the rest of the season. I was thoroughly confused. Then something came to me in a way that thoughts often do, through the context of a book or a movie that has become iconic in my mind. There’s a moment in Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner, when the patriarch of an upper class family—played by Spencer Tracy—living in San Francisco in the mid-sixties, comes to the realization, after much angst and contemplation, that he approves and will give his blessing to the marriage of his daughter to a black man—played by Sidney Poitier. At that moment he is by himself, in his bedroom, getting ready to go down stairs to tell the families of the perspective bride and groom what his feelings are on the marriage. Until that moment he doesn’t know what he’s going to announce when says to himself, out loud, “son of a bitch.” Then he goes down and delivers, in my opinion, one of the greatest speeches in movie history, in which he outlines the pros and cons of the marriage and, stunningly, why he approves.
Anyway, I had a “son of a bitch” moment this afternoon when I came to the conclusion that this combination of players and coaches has hit their stride and that the performance we witnessed on Saturday is not just possibly the new norm. It’s probably the new norm. After all, Greg Robinson has just been here a month and Major Applewhite and Darrell Wyatt have only planned and executed six game plans together as co-offensive coordinators. Does the fact it has taken Mack Brown two-and-a-half seasons to get things “fixed” reflect poorly on his performance? Yes, absolutely it does, but, as he has said repeatedly during the past three weeks, Texas can still win the Big 12 and go to a BCS Bowl, which would constitute a very successful season. So after much angst and contemplation,my pre-season prediction of 9-3 suddenly is looking good and now I can add a Big 12 Championship to that prediction. Predictions are a lot like opinions and opinions are like, well you know what they’re like, and everyone’s got one. At the very least the Longhorns should now be fun to watch for the rest of the season.
What it was like at the Game
1. The combination of heat and humidity were the highest of any of the 35 OU games I’ve been to. I don’t sweat much but there were thousands of soaked-through burnt orange shirts in the Cotton Bowl and thousands of fans who retreated to the shade of concourse to watch on the jumbotron.
2. The Texas crowd was as loud as I can remember for this game, certainly as loud as 2008 and 1977, deafening at times.
3. At one point during the third quarter as I walked up the aisle, I was high-fived by about five total strangers in a row and even slapped on the back by one Longhorn fan an as I passed by. An unprecedented show of jubilation for the historically more stoic Longhorn fans. Or maybe they just knew who I was.
4. Curious game plan for Oklahoma in not running a running quarterback against a defense that has been struggling, to say the least, against the run.
5. I put the binos on Mack Brown several times during the game. He was very calm and all business. His best side line demeanor in quite a while.
6. My post-game beer in a paper cup was one of the best ones I’ve ever tasted.
Next year will be my 36th year to attend the OU Game.
HooK eM,
W.E.
Over/Under Results
Not surprisingly, the scores this week were very low with mostly twos and threes and a couple of fours and one five. However, two young men, amazingly, hit the mark. Mark Stephan, aka Homer Mark and Mark Adams finished far ahead of the field. Homer, in a very Homer like performance, nailed the answers to eight out of ten questions. Mark Adams, who already has multiple racks mounted on the mantle, now has another one, scoring an almost perfect nine.
Hey Mark, “It’s the Holiday Season! Let’s binge ‘em up!”
