The action in the Texas-Alabama game was sizzling. And the Austin heat was overwhelming. So how does a fan handle it all?
If you’re a Longhorn fan, you take a dip in one of the fancy on-campus fountains near Royal-Memorial Stadium. Note, said fan didn’t drown his sorrows. The fountain was too shallow. Plus, top-ranked Alabama needed a last-second field goal to beat Texas, which lost its starting quarterback to injury. Even the second-team QB was hobbled.
But as Lee Corso would say, not so fast my friend, unless you bring more friends to frolic in the fountain. It wasn’t long before it turned into a pool party.
Fans of other teams offered their opinion. (It is Twitter). “I would respond that way if I had to stand in 100 degree weather and watch Alabama crush my happiness in that fashion,” wrote one fan. (Not sure if any Texas fan expected Texas to beat Alabama, much less own a lead until 10 seconds to play.)
But the fan brought up a significant point. The Texas-Alabama game started at 11 a.m. Temperatures on the field approached 120 degrees. It wasn’t quite that hot in the stands. But let’s just say there wasn’t a ton of elbow room.
There were 105,213 fans who watched the game. That’s a stadium record and one of the largest in the state. Texas and Texas A&M own the largest stadiums in the Lone Star State.
So if you didn’t watch all of Texas and Alabama, here’s the set up for the game. The Crimson Tide came in as a 20-point favorite. The Longhorns were only 5-7 last season. And although there’s optimism in Austin after a 52-10 win in the season-opener, few believed UT could pull off an upset. But that’s why they play the game.
Quinn Ewers, an Ohio State transfer and the top QB in the country in his recruiting class, started for the Longhorns. And Ewers got off to a fast start, completing 9 out of 12 for 134 yards. He was pretty much in control until a late hit took him out of the game with a shoulder injury.
Hudson Card, Ewers’ backup, held steady, even when he injured a leg. Although Card was basically immobile, he led Texas to a 19-17 lead over Alabama with 1:29 to go.
But Crimson Tide quarterback Bryce Young, last year’s Heisman winner, finally was able to figure out the Longhorn defense in the fourth quarter. He calmly led the Tide down the field to answer UT’s field goal. With 10 seconds remaining in the game, Will Reichard kicked a 33-yard field goal for the victory.
The last time the two teams met was for the national championship after the 2009 season. UT quarterback Colt McCoy, a two-time All-American and winningest QB in college football history, hurt his neck/shoulder on a similar kind of hit.
So it’s a wonder that after this loss to Alabama, Texas fans didn’t do something more than swim in a fountain.
