Clay Horning
How about that?I’ve got to be honest. I’m not so sure about the spot. It was an incredible play and I have no idea how Danny Amendola kept hold of the ball while Darien Williams was trying to pull it away. No doubt about that. But good spot or not, I’m pretty sure the ball never crossed the yellow line spread out across the television I was watching.
But the touchdown?
It would have taken a reverse angle replay to be sure Taurean Henderson reached the goal line on the game’s final play. And for all the cameras Fox Sports Net employed, none provided the telling shot. But you know who just happened to be in the right place to make that call? Sorry Sooner Nation, but none other than the guy in the striped shirt who made the call.
And so ended, upon further review, the best game of the season.
Not just Texas Tech or Oklahoma’s, but just maybe all of college football.
Because there’s no way around it.
This was a classic.
Remember Torrance Marshall’s interception return at Texas A&M; in 2000? Now pretend A&M; had taken the kick and marched right back down the field and replaced the Sooners’ miracle finish with one of its own.
If you recall, the Aggies had time before those ridiculous cadets pulled their swords to defend the field.
Or just go back to last season at A&M;, after Jason White and Mark Bradley provided the best finish to a Sooner victory since Marshall’s return. Only now, imagine Reggie McNeal saving one more drive for a stirring Aggie finish.
Because that’s what happened in Lubbock Saturday.
Rhett Bomar took the Sooners right down the field and made it 17-14 when he found Malcolm Kelly from 14 yards.
OU’s defense stiffened, Tech went three-and-out, punted the ball away and the Sooners took over just 51 yards from an apparent victory.
OU picked up the first 41 of those yards before Rhett Bomar handed the ball to Adrian Peterson on that same stretch play that kept going backwards so many weeks ago at UCLA. Only this time around, all Peterson did was prove there’s him and a nation full of pretenders when it comes to naming the best running back in the college game, going on about the best 13-yard touchdown run any of us will ever see.
The Sooners had done it again.
Even better, Jason White was nowhere to be seen.
Bomar had dealt with a season of downs and ups, quick starts and slow finishes and vice-versa, but this was something new. To quarterback the Sooners from 17-7 down to victory, on the road, in a hostile and dusty and windy West Texas environment … as a redshirt freshman!
It was like graduation day for Bomar, only OU gets to keep him for two more games and three more seasons.
And then Cody Hodges took Tech down the field to beat the Sooners.
Bang!
Even if the last minute took half an hour to put in the books.
A miracle on top of a miracle.
You think the referees took the game away?
Maybe, but don’t forget OU had to intercept a pair of passes in the end zone just to find itself behind by two touchdowns in the fourth quarter.
And for all the grief Mike Leach takes for his unwillingness to do anything but throw the ball, Saturday he directed an offense that ran for 144 yards. The Sooners, with the best running back on earth playing for nothing but a scholarship, still only ran for 162.
And at the very end, there was even a bit of justice.
Beat, Williams held Amendola. The right play, it kept Tech out of the end zone as precious seconds ran off the clock. It also put Tech at the 2, but who cares? With no time outs and so little time, Hodges would still have to throw.
Right?
No way Leach calls for a run from the 4. But from the 2? It was like Williams gave Picasso a new palette from which to paint.
So Hodges hands the ball to Henderson. Stopped cold, the ball somehow broke the plane.
That’s the way the referee saw it, anyway.
Just an absolute classic.
And if it hurts, well, don’t think of it as a Sooner loss. Think of it as a Mike Leach victory.
Because, really, the Sooners didn’t lose. They just got beat.
Clay Horning366-3526cfhorning@normantranscript.com
