2005 Rose Bowl

Watching it on LHN right now.

Just got me to thinking about what a historical run that stretch was for the University of Texas. at Austin. We beat Michigan, Ohio State, got the 5 year OU monkey off the back, and then beat the greatest team in the history of the World, University of Southern California, aka, the Great Army beater. You're welcome, ESPN.

Four traditional powers, our feelings of OU notwithstanding, over that 12 month stretch. Man, what a great time.

 

The Big 12 North race came down to the last week of the season, and I was rooting for Nebraska just so we could add their name to the list instead of beating Colorado a second time.

 

I don't know. It was a lot of fun stomping a mudhole in Colorado that day. As much as people look back on that game and think we ran up the score, we called the dogs off in 3rd quarter after the Buffs came out of the locker room and suffered an epic implosion during the first six or so minutes of the second half.

 

Point of Parliamentary Order: Y'all are talking 2005 season. I am talking the 2005 Rose Bowl against Michigan.

 

Technicality: the 2004 season the Horns lost only to ou and had not yet played Ohio State. Horns were 11-1 and thanks to Mack lobbying were invited to the Jan. 2005 Rose Bowl to play / beat Michigan at the buzzer.

In Sept. 2005, the Horns played tOSU, at night, in the 'shoe and won 25-22 and went on to 13-0 and a NC.

 

I was talking about the historic run from the Michigan game. The 12 months that followed.

 

Yes, it WAS a truly historic run... I would love to see / experience at least 1 more of those runs before my last breath....

 

Man that was one ugly field goal (to beat Michigan). Who was it...Dusty Mangum?
Not quite as nerve racking as Hunter Lawrence's to beat Nebraska circa 2009 though. Would have remembered that miss longer than Blake Gideon's dropped INT...let's see..2008.
Man for all the "near misses" during that great run...we had a few "near makes" that hurt......seemed to start when we started Phil Simms Jr over Major in the 2001 Big12 Championship.
Great times indeed...and I am thankful...but could have been so much better.

 

You and me both, brother.

 

Very painful - what a team that 2008 bunch was!

I was at that Big XII Championship game and took my 10 year old son... Simms had 4 INT's before Mack pulled him My son cried over the loss after the game. His old man was very angry post game and walking out made eye contact with DKR who was also visibly shaken.

 

Not to get off track from the topic at hand, but, while the Gideon drop was painful, it paled in comparison to 2 defenders being unable to at least push Crabtree out of bounds. For Gawd's sake, that would have been helpful. Also, running from the 1/2 yard line (or close to it as I recall) and giving up a safety wasn't helpful in the early going either.

Now, back to the 2004-2005 Glory....

 

Just checked out box score on Texassports; last score in the game was with about 7:30 to go in the 3rd, Texas scored their final TD to make it 70-3 which after another 1-1/2 quarters is how it remained.

70-3 mid 3rd quarter.

Against the allegedly 2nd best team in your conference (well, at least representing the other division).

Damn.

Not sure if that thought is more amazing or recollection of Klatt getting Bomared.

 

You were talking about the run starting with the Michigan Rose Bowl and culminating with the USC Rose Bowl. So was I.

 

I was convinced then and now, if Mack had not called off the dawgs, that team would have scored a beatdown > 100 points that day!

 

Gotcha.

 

I do empathize.
Try being me...
I was in downtown Denver that night.

 

That was about as much fun at a game as I've ever had. Not much better than coming down to the final minute of a tight game, looking down and hearing the Michigan band playing Hail to the Victors while the UT band is playing Grandioso. That was one of those times where I had to ask myself if this was really happening. Just a fantastic game to attend.

 

It was tipped I believe.

 

^ both the field goal and the interception.

 

But isn't it true had Earl knocked Crabtree out of bounds then they would have kicked a field goal to win the game.

 

Maybe. Maybe two guys could have just tackled him.

 

Now the 2005 CCG against Colorado is on. Guess I never really thought about it, but we had 35 points with about 3 minutes remaining in the 1st half. So, Texas doubled that in about the next 12 minutes of playing time. 70 points, half of those in less than 1 quarter of play, and the most of the second half we don't score again. Amazing. Yes, to echo a comment above, we certainly could have easily scored over 100.

 

Yeah. The risky thing about Leach's call is that if they had tackled Crabtree in-bounds, Tech may not have been able to get another play off.

 

I agree. But we could have run off more clock on our last drive and gave too much time left for Tech. Very poor clock management. They likely would have had a shot at a field goal to win but it would have been up to a very inexperienced kicker.

 

I'm pretty sure they had a timeout left.

 

Yeah I didn't word that very well. There was 0:01 left on the clock after that play, although he really crossed the goal line at about 0:02. With a tackle in-bounds, clock might have run out on the game before they could call time out.

 

We didn't need to run more time off our last drive. There was 1:29 remaining. Any team that can't hold a game-changing lead for 89 seconds doesn't deserve to win.

We let Tech return a kickoff 38 yards and then proceeded to give up decent yards on 4 straight plays before the Gideon non-pick. We were tired and laid down. The 19-point lead we spotted Tech was too big to overcome.

 

Ultimately we lost that game in the first half when we basically sleepwalked until finally realizing we had a fight on our hands. If we'd played the entire game like we did the first half, we win by 10 points. But... alas...

 

Granted losing Quan Cosby early in the half, and then losing Orakpo on an uncalled illegal block, didn't help us out any either. But yeah we started slow a lot in 2008. We scored a combined 1 TD and 5 FGs in the first half on offense against Tech, OU, and Ohio State that year. Then in those 2nd halves we combined for 10 TD and 1 FG.

Sure but why challenge yourself more than you have to? We could have easily made the test more like "hold the lead for 29 seconds" than "hold the lead for 89 seconds" with a little more intelligence.

 

Even the announcers were saying stuff like; "if you're Texas you don't wanna score too fast here".

Still, as others have noted, there were lots of other factors that led to that loss. I remember leaping out of my chair when I thought Gideon made the interception.

Then to make things worse, Tech goes up to Norman and absolutely gets annihilated the next week. If they'd have at least given them a game...who knows. Cost us a shot at Tebow's Gators and the MNC.