Two minutes left in the game and 75 yards of natural turf ahead of you … who would you want as your field general? The two-minute drill. Many might say Graham Harrell, if they have seen the replay of arguably the biggest come-from-behind upset in college football in the last 10 years.
Harrell On The Offensive
That was the scenario at the 2016 Zaxby’s Heart Of Dallas Bowl matching the West Point Black Knights of Army against the North Texas Mean Green Eagles … only this time Harrell was offensive coordinator, rather than the quarterback who threw that famous touchdown in ’08 to Michael Crabtree vaulting the receiver to instant stardom and a lucrative NFL career.
No longer in the red and black helmet, Harrell was calling the plays for the Mean Green in a ball cap and head set. But true to their newfound Air Raid pedigree, the North Texas charges marched down the field, trailing 31-28, but stalled just outside the red zone. The comeback victory was not to be … NT’s Trevor More knotted the score at 31 with a 37-yard field goal, handing the ball back to Army with only a few seconds remaining.
Tie game … to overtime. Here’s a quick visual, below:
In overtime, Army took first possession and drove down to the North Texas three yard line, where Jordan Asberry punched it in for the final TD of the game. (The kick was good, not that it mattered …) North Texas moved the ball a few yards in its overtime possession, but saw its season hanging on a fourth down desperation throw that was batted down at the five yard line to end the game.
Army’s Bradshaw Distributes
A great game it was — Army was in control most of the day … a day featuring two offenses Knight-and-day different: the drive-it-down-the-throat, triple option Army squad with their throwback stenciled jerseys and their throwback QB inches off the ground under center vs. yet one more iteration of the Air Raid led by a 6-3 long-armed gunslinger in a silver chrome helmet.
Morris Threads This One
This day, it was the run that would prevail. The total yards on the ground tells a story of dominance, much more than the final score — but that is the beauty of a high-powered passing offense — staying alive against a more physical opponent.
Army had 533 total yards of offense, 480 of those on the ground, with three ball carriers topping 80 yards, two over 100 yards, including QB Ahmad Bradshaw who ran the option all day for 129 yards. Army had a grand total of four targets in their passing game, with two completions …. the passes were thrown to two receivers … Ha … that’s spreading the receptions around. Pity that the pitch on the option play doesn’t count as a pass and a completion. Army’s QB Ahmad Bradshaw might rewrite the books on passing after a day of running around end, and flicking the ball to a running back — left handed or right handed. You know that pitch almost covers as many yards as some of the short passes as quarterbacks spread the ball around more and more … I digress.
On the other side of the ball, to figure the Mean Green’s passing stats at the hand of Alec Morris, pretty much just put a zero (X10) behind Army’s stats … 40 attempts, 27 completions, spread among four receivers, two with more than 75 yards in the air.
In Army terms, spreading the ball around meant that two different fullbacks scored TDs:)
Overall … a great day for Army’s Bradshaw, pitching in space to create long runs by his backs and taking a 65-yard keeper to the house. Conversely, NT’s Alec Morris passed for a respectable 26 completions on 38 attempts, under pressure much of the day … a sunny, 70-degree day in the storied old Cotton Bowl.
So … some of you may be wondering about the availability of modern Wi-Fi technology in such a grand old stadium. Well me too. So I got to the game early and fired up Wi-Fi in the pressbox. It worked marvelously, and I tweeted as much … posted a good Wi-Fi review on Facebook too. Then after such high marks, the system was pretty much non-existent … Ha … I couldn’t even get back on line to redact the high marks. So rather than wait 15 minutes for a tweet to go through from the pressbox to the Twitter universe … this scribe headed for the sidelines to try my hand as sports pho-tog.
This caught me by surprise. While I walked through the pressbox, one of the food service guys — a computer type by his appearance, if I might stereotype — commented on the back tagline of my PingWi-Fi shirt. (If you don’t know, my freebie shirts are imprinted with “Ping Responsibly” … just a play on the politically correct slogan … and the name of the blog). But this young man took it quite seriously, gratefully saying to me, “Finally an Internet provider who cares about the download speed.” Amen Brother! … What ever all that means. To the sidelines …
But first … just one pitstop, which may have been the most interesting moment of the day in the old Cotton Bowl. Ha … I stepped inside the door of the pressbox men’s room only to be greeted by pitch black … no lights. I pointed my phone at the switch and attempted to light the room. No dice. But I really had to go, so I inched forward to the porcelain – the on-the-wall variety I think — and let ’er rip. That’s when a quite ambiguous voice called out from the dark. “The lights don’t work.” “We’ll … I can see that … or can’t, rather,” I thought. I surmised the person said that just to alert me to the fact that another human was in the restroom.
But wait. Was that a man’s voice? Was I in the correct restroom for my lifelong gender assignment? Had I entered the wrong door, in these strange days in which we live? Innocently, I replied, “Yes. I can’t see a thing. Am I in the right restroom?” The ambiguous voice called back, “This is the men’s restroom.” Ha … still unsure, I responded innocently, “So are you in the right restroom?” How awkward. Thank goodness … about that time, two more guys came in and the light from the open door illuminated the ambiguous person, who appeared to have been or be a male. Sigh of relief.
Second best moment of the day … then with three guys doing their thing in the restroom in total darkness … the one liners … bathroom humor to a minor degree … and oh the reaction when the infrared sensors on the urinals kicked in … and we were all left to complete our task with a red blinking strobe light highlighting our efforts. Pretty crazy.
Know what I sayin?
