The SEC Forum at College Football Fan Site, CFB51!!!

We had something similar happen in about 2004 vs OU.  Our best receiver/PR muffed the punt near the end of the game with A&M leading, OU recovered on like the 5 yard line or something.  Trying to remember our PR guys name, it was a terrible mistake that pretty much cost us the game.  It was later found out when he barely got into the NFL he had some kind of major injury or suffered one early or something and never played pro ball.  Terrance Murphy, I just remembered.  He's supposedly a big shot business man in BCS area now. 

I was at the 2004 game in College Station between A&M and OU.  I don't remember the muffed punt, but I remember some other details, some apparently incorrectly.  I thought I remembered A&M taking a 28-14 lead into the half, but I looked it up and it was 28-21.  And the final score was closer than I remembered.....I thought OU kinda shut down A&M in the second half and ran away with it, but A&M did score a TD in the 4th and it was a one score game.  But the 14-0 3rd quarter in favor of OU makes my memory think second-half blowout, similar to what A&M just did to LSU, although OU only took a 7 pt lead into the 4th, according to the webz.  I also remember a great desire from the fans there for revenge and redemption, because, iirc, the year earlier was when OU had mercilessly beaten A&M 77-0, which is still the worst thing I've ever seen on television, ever. 

I believe (didn't look this up) Reggie McNeal was the Aggie QB at that time.  I know for sure Adrian Peterson was with OU that day, and I was highly impressed by him in person. 

My one and only foray into the Aggie sanctuary, to this day.  My cousin was a student at the time and I met him there, though I don't think we were sitting the student section.  We had really good seats tho, and I was there.  In a green shirt.  Literally the only person in the entire section, perhaps stadium, not wearing maroon.  I've wondered, since that game was probably on tv, if the camera ever caught the oddity.....I should've stuck out like a sore thumb.  I later would spend more than a year working in College Station, but I never went back to a game. 

A girl I was after at the time was in the cool-kids suite because she was also being pursued by the Chancellor's son.....this schmuck, who had just put this book out.....so she had the luxury-box experience that day.  He was older than me, had a way better lifestyle (dunno if he made lots of money or his family just had it, or both) and drove a way nicer car than me.  Fortunately, he had the personality of a platypus (my opinion, no one else's) and I got her anyway.  She was a Longhorn fan anyway, from Austin, where I knew her from, so there was really no sense in her getting tangled up with an Aggie like that.  Made way more sense to get tangled up with a poor, but way cooler, tiger like myself.

Anyway, it was a good time with a great atmosphere, I reckon.  Just never could figure out why the fan chants kept sawing the Horns off.....of Oklahoma? 

I missed the Big 12 Championship game that year against K-State where apparently Darren Sproles went berserk on OU, so I never knew exactly what happened on the field in that game and if there were any clues as to a story behind it.  I remember feeling like the media couldn't have been helpful, who spent the entire week explaining that OU's lead in the BCS was so commanding that they could lose the game and still be ranked #1.  Turns out, they were proved to be correct.  I wondered if the OU players heard all that and if that kind of thing can get in your head.  KSU has to be given their due credit too, of course. 

What I did know (I thought, at least) was that they were a far, far better team than the B12CG showed, and they were gonna be pissed, especially with the media thereafter acting like they hadn't been hyping them up all year as the Greatest Team Of All Time and crying and moaning for a USC vs. LSU matchup and to leave OU out.  OU was going to be more dangerous than ever.  And they had murder-balled nearly every team, sans KSU.  And despite the 2001 SEC CG two years earlier for LSU, which seemed a bit fluky anyway, my brain was still stuck in the 90's and I didn't perceive LSU the way I would in the years that followed.  And the NC was in fact a close affair, 21-14 with a defensive TD being the difference.  And that remained my perception for quite a while.

One day I rewatched that NC game, and then sometime later I rewatched it again just to be sure I wasn't crazy the first time.  Rewatching without emotion and without adrenaline and excitement......LSU whipped OU's ass that day, everywhere except the scoreboard.  The game shouldn't have been a one-score game, and OU was lucky to keep it that way.  They gained 154 total yards, less than half of what LSU gained, and just 52 rushing, which isn't going to win you many games.  LSU won the turnover battle and also the field position battle most of the game.  OU got half their points on a turnover that gave them first and goal, and then they still needed a penalty and an extra set of downs to get the ball in the endzone.  Only a dumb LSU penalty when the players were pretty much already celebrating near the end kept LSU from scoring again, at least a FG to make it a two-score game. 

I think I credit that game with making me expect LSU to hang with the big dogs instead of expecting a loss. 

Also, Bob Stoops kicked a puppy during that game.