USC Rips a Win Away from Texas

Published on 17-Sep-2017 by Alan Adamsson

Football - NCAA    NCAA Football Daily Update

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USC Rips a Win Away from Texas

Ask yourself this:

  • You're a highly-paid savior coach of the richest college athletic program in the USA;
  • You've put its flagship sport in the hands of a true freshman QB;
  • Your defense has done a brilliant job of keeping close to a vaunted team at its place;
  • You've done enough to take the game to a second overtime;
  • Your freshman QB just dashed through a hole to get to within a shadow of the goal line;
  • So what'cha gonna call?

Do you think there are enough obvious reasons for your response to be, Anything but this:

An opening like the play before it is one thing.

But what in the name of Matthew McConaughey's Lincoln commercials are the Longhorns doing sending a frosh scrambler into a horde of bulked up humanity that's designed to die on a hill like that?

The kid didn't even know to wrap up the ball, even after fumbling another one away earlier on.

Still, that play was a perfect summary for all the foibles that came before it in an immensely watchable game. That's in spite of -- or maybe because of, for schadenfreude fans -- four Texas turnovers to USC's two, dropped passes amidst spectacular grabs, the 'Horns 10 flags to the Trojans' 8 ...

And yet, it was the sorta 27-24 2OT drama that kept USC undefeated and Texas believing it had improved over that bed-wetting against Maryland in Week 1.

The Longhorn defense was a polar opposite against USC. They must've been on the field for 12 of the first quarter's 15 minutes, doing stuff like you see as the highlight package opens:

That was true freshman walk-on Chase McGrath splitting the uprights. That's right; a true freshman was given the responsibility to seal the deal.

College coaches are crazy.

At least Clay Helton didn't send him into a massive defensive line to do it.