FROM THE REAL ART SPORTS DESK
LONGHORNS POUND CORNHOLERS; LSU BESTS MIDDLE SCHOOL TEAM

From the AP via ESPN:

Texas holds off Taylor Martinez to upset Nebraska

Texas (4-2, 2-1 Big 12) came as a 9 1/2-point underdog after two straight losses. But the Longhorns surprised Nebraska (5-1, 1-1) by turning Gilbert loose in the run game for the first time this season.

Though no one will confuse Gilbert the runner with Texas greats Vince Young or Colt McCoy, the sophomore picked up 71 yards and two touchdowns on the ground. He flummoxed the Huskers with quarterback draws and scrambles.

"We've been encouraging Garrett to make yards with his feet. He did that today," Brown said. "He maybe doesn't look like Vince or Colt when he's running the ball, but he's effective. We've got to keep him doing that. It's better for us when he can move his feet."

Garrett said he has no problem letting his legs do the work.

"I feel comfortable running it," he said. "It was probably just a little bit bigger part of the game plan this week. The offensive line did a great job of opening up some creases and we were able to find some yards."

The Longhorns stymied a Nebraska offense that had been averaging 494 yards a game, holding the Huskers to just 202 yards.

More here.

Again from the AP via ESPN:

Michael Ford's first career TDs seal win for No. 9 LSU

"I didn't think we played with a lot of emotion," Miles said after LSU took a 32-10 victory over the Cowboys on Saturday night that, for much of the contest, was closer than the final score indicated.

"If you look in college football, you can see that there's some other teams that played emotional games the week before and didn't quite play their best" this week, Miles said, referring to losses Saturday by South Carolina and Florida. "Maybe the timing was right for us to play McNeese and play as poorly as we did and win."

LSU (7-0) needed a pair of touchdowns from Stevan Ridley to take its first lead, then Michael Ford added the first two scoring runs of his career in the second half as Tigers eventually wore down feisty McNeese.

They'll need a much better performance next week against No. 7 Auburn, and the fans in Tiger Stadium seemed to be making that very point by booing more than once.

More here.

Okay, this was a good football weekend for me. Everybody won, the Saints, the Texans, LSU, and, of course, my beloved Longhorns. And I liked what I saw from the 'Horns. I don't like so much what I saw from LSU, but at least they weren't sloppy. Sluggish is probably the best way to describe the Tigers' play against the junior high school team they faced at Death Valley on Saturday. I'll take sluggish, which is much easier to fix, over the chronically mistake-ridden WTF game strategy that has become something of a Les Miles earmark during his tenure in Baton Rouge. I'm optimistic about Auburn. No way the other Tigers are going to put up sixty five points on my Tigers. LSU's defense is for real.

Unfortunately, it remains to be seen how real LSU's offense is. We'll probably win it in the last five minutes or something. I continue to be worried about Alabama.

But the Longhorns made me quite happy. I mean, watching the game it was completely clear that Nebraska was ranked too high: the Cornholers are just not worthy of the top five. And, for that matter, Texas shouldn't have been dropped from the top twenty five after losing to OU--I'm really starting to have some suspicion about the AP poll. So, I don't think this is as dramatic a victory as it appears to be. Nonetheless, this was a big deal. Nebraska, while not top five material, is a good football team, and Texas played them in Lincoln. Not an easy thing to do even if you really do deserve to be in the top five.

I was particularly pleased to see Gilbert so successful running the ball. This is very likely the key to opening up the rest of the game for Texas, as it has been for the last seven or eight seasons with Colt McCoy and Vince Young before him. Of course, it didn't hurt at all to have the Longhorn offensive line totally dominating Nebraska's defensive line--this would have been impossible last year what with that man-mountain the Cornholers had installed in the middle of the field. But that guy's off in the pros now, and once again, well, here's a sidebar factoid from the AP article:

The Texas defense held Nebraska to 202 yards as the Longhorns beat the Huskers for the ninth time in 10 games since joining the Big 12.

Heh. Nine of ten games went to Texas. I fucking hated Nebraska back in the 90s when the Southwest Conference fell apart and Texas joined the Big 12. And then, against all odds, we beat them to win the first conference championship. And we just kept on beating them. For years. I still dislike these corn-fed Midwestern bungholes, but, after all those losses, I don't really hate them anymore. Kind of hard to take them seriously. Nebraska's bolting from the Big 12 next year to join the Big 10, but it is absolutely certain that for the years the Cornholers and Texas played together in the same conference, the Longhorns had their number.

Go Big Red. And don't let the door hit you on the way out. Or do let the door hit you. I don't care. You suck and can't beat Texas.

Hook 'em 'Horns!

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