Alamo Bowl: Play call and McCoy lead to comeback

By Robert Rousseau  |   Tuesday, January 02, 2007  |  Comments( 0 )

College Football
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Entering this past weekend's Alamo Bowl, the Iowa Hawkeyes had lost five of their last six contests. We're talking about losses to the Indiana Hoosiers and Northwestern Wildcats here, too. In fact, the only game they won during that streak came against Northern Illinois on Oct. 28.

Needless to say, the Hawkeyes were on a downward trend.

Perhaps what had been lost on many was the fact that the Texas Longhorns were also on a downward slope having lost their last two contests. In addition, they probably weren't all too thrilled to be playing in the Alamo Bowl when just weeks earlier, BCS bids had been dancing in their heads.

Iowa and disappointing senior quarterback Drew Tate, on the other hand, were probably quite happy to just be playing in the postseason.

They had a lot to prove.

The underdog Hawkeyes played with a chip on their collective shoulders, jumping out to a 14-0 first-quarter lead. Tate was excellent in the first half, throwing for 184 yards (on the day he completed 15-of-25 passes for 274 yards and two touchdowns).

That's the good news for the Hawkeyes.

The bad news, of course, is that Texas freshman quarterback Colt McCoy got his legs under him after a wobbly beginning and started throwing darts. In the end, he completed 26-of-40 passes for 308 yards and two touchdowns in leading his team to a 26-24 victory.

But this one was hardly put in the bag soon. Midway through the fourth quarter, Iowa had the ball near midfield. A field goal would've won the game for the Hawkeyes.

And they took a chance with a wide-receiver pass on first down.

Trick plays sometimes work; other times they can blow up in your face. In this particular instance, things went awry.

Texas safety Marcus Griffin exploded into the backfield and sacked Dominique Douglas for a nine-yard loss. The Hawkeyes never recovered from that play and were forced to punt.

The botched trick play ended up as the turning point in the game.

Iowa head coach Kirk Ferentz could've hid or just refused to comment. He didn't.

Rather, he said, "it's totally my fault. I'm sick over it. Guys competed that long and that hard and that put us in a bad situation."

It's nice to see a coach take some blame off his team (even if that one play was hardly the entire reason why they lost the game).

Ultimately, Texas won this game because of Colt McCoy and a trick play gone horribly wrong. Imagine McCoy when he's a sophomore with a little experience.

The future is bright in Texas.
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About Robert Rousseau

Robert Rousseau is a sports writer that has been published in a variety of print and online venues. He’s been writing for RealFootball365.com for almost three years now. When Rousseau isn’t writing about college football he tends to be penning mixed martial arts pieces for MMAFighting.com or...
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