After Saturday's game ended with Texas on the losing side of a gut-wrenching 27-24 loss to Notre Dame, Longhorn players were not quite ready to think about their next game. They had bigger worries on their mind.
"I bet if you took a poll of the players, most of them probably think that the sun will not come up tomorrow," Texas head coach John Mackovic said.
Sunday morning, the sun did come up. Now, the rest of the season does.
In a somber postgame press conference, the rest of the season didn't seem important. Mackovic, however, said he tried to remind his team that more games were on the way.
"I said that if we'd won the game, we'd all be in there patting each other on the back and telling each other how great we are, but we'd still have to get up tomorrow and get ready to go play Virginia," Mackovic said.
The defeat, made tougher by the fact that Texas seemed to have the game in their favor, was the kind of loss that can linger with a team. Dejected players stressed the importance of putting the game behind them. Easier said than done.
"It's going to be hard for us to pick ourselves back up and come back," Texas fullback Ricky Williams said. "This hurts so much. It's a big step back."
Said Texas tight end Pat Fitzgerald: "It's the toughest loss I've ever been associated with at Texas."
Mackovic is 0-6-1 against top 10 competition since arriving at Texas. The Horns have lost several big games that could have earned them national recognition, such as Notre Dame twice and last season's Sugar Bowl. Despite underdog status, the Longhorns thought this game would get them over the hump.
"We came to win this game," Texas receiver Mike Adams said. "No doubts. We knew the game could be close or it could be a blowout, but either way it went, we were going to win the game. We didn't. We just didn't do it. It's as simple as that."
No. 13 Texas is still stuck in a second-tier level below the elite powers. If the Horns had won, they would likely be ranked in the top five.
"This was a game that this program really wanted to win," Texas guard Dan Neil said. "It would have helped a lot but we didn't win... We're going to find out real quickly if we're going to be able to do it next week."
The rest of the season, however, gives Texas plenty of chances to get back near the top. The Horns play at Virginia on national television this Saturday, then at Colorado Oct. 26 and could play Nebraska or the Big 12 North division winner if they make it to the Big 12 championship.
"If we would have won the game, we would have celebrated tonight and get back to work Monday," Texas noseguard Chris Akins said. "I guess we'll feel down and get back to work. All losses hurt but we've got a lot of character on this team and I don't think we're going to let one game ruin our season."
Said kicker Phil Dawson: "We can't let this distract us from what our goals were at the beginning of the season and that's to win the Big 12 championship."
In 1990, Texas lost to Colorado early in the season but wound up winning the rest of its games to reach No. 3 in the country at the end of the regular season. This year, Texas joins Tennessee, Nebraska, Syracuse, Colorado and Southern California as top ten teams that have lost.
"Young people are resilient," Mackovic said. "We have a lot of things at stake. As I mentioned earlier in the week, whoever wins the game will be more ahead in the national championship race but they're a marked team. Whoever loses will have to claw their way back. We're in that category with Colorado. Now we have to find out what we're made of, how we bounce back, how we claw and fight and scratch our way back."
That won't be an easy task.
"This game here could have put us up for big things as far as national championship contention goes," Adams said. "But we'll come back, take care of Virginia. I know next week, we're going to win the game. The season's not over. But, the way I feel, it's real hard to put the game behind us right now. It's a bitter feeling."
When the final gun sounded, it was the mistakes of an experienced punter and an all-conference quarterback that set up game-winning heroics for an unproven, shaky freshman.
On the game's last play, Notre Dame freshman kicker Jim Sanson nailed a 39-yard field goal to give the Fighting Irish a 27-24 victory over Texas before a record crowd of 83,312 at Royal-Memorial Stadium on Saturday. The win quelled the Horns' hopes for top-five recognition and placed Notre Dame in good position for a national title run.
"[Sanson] hasn't made one in practice all year," Notre Dame head coach Lou Holtz said. "He kicks more foul balls than any place-kicker in the history of the game."
Texas fullback Ricky Williams said, "I couldn't tell if it went through, but I saw the referee's hands go up and it hit me right there that we lost. It was over that quickly."
Sanson's clutch kick was the finale to a flip-flop contest in which the Irish converted when it counted and the Horns blundered when it mattered most. Even though the Longhorns gave up 292 yards rushing, it was Texas quarterback James Brown's fourth quarter interception and Mark Shultis' poor punt that were the turning points which helped Notre Dame grab the victory from the stunned Longhorns.
"It's hard for me to talk right now because I just feel empty," Texas receiver Mike Adams said. "It scarred my emotions. I don't feel like crying. I don't feel like anything. Sometimes after a game you feel a lot of emotion, but I don't feel anythihg. We just lost it and it's hard to come to grips with that. ... We gave the game away. We handed it to them. I don't think they beat us."
In fact, it was the Longhorns who beat themselves. With Texas winning 24-17 and only 6:47 left in the game, Brown forced a pass to tight end Pat Fitzgerald, only to have it deflect off Notre Dame linebacker Kory Minor's shoulder pad and into the hands of linebacker Lyron Cobbins at the UT 34-yard line.
"Turnovers usually decide the game and just look at it," offensive lineman Dan Neil said. "They got one turnover and that was the game."
The Irish then marched 28 yards, setting up a crucial fourth-and-goal at the six-yard line.
Quarterback Ron Powlus pitched right on an option play to Autry Denson, who fell into the end zone, tying the game, 24-24, at the 2:54 mark. The Irish had initially been at the one-yard line, but an illegal procedure penalty knocked Notre Dame back to the six.
"We got down to the two-inch line and jumped offside, which is a tribute to the Texas crowd," Irish coach Lou Holtz said. "It was loud, we couldn't hear. ... Our fullback went the wrong way, and consequently Autry Denson had to beat the guy into the end zone. Autry made a great effort."
Denson said, "I was just thinking, 'six [points] -- get in the end zone, whatever it takes. If I have to take somebody with me, just go.'"
But the Horns still had a good chance to win. Texas took over at its own 20 with 2:54 remaining and one of the nation's best kickers, Phil Dawson, strolling the UT sideline. Five plays later, however, the Longhorns had gained only 16 yards and Shultis shanked the kick 21 yards. The punt set the Irish offense up at their own 43-yard line with 59 seconds left.
"I was trying to get the ball by the sidelines, but it went out too early," said Shultis, who had had an excellent game before his final punt. "It's just unfortunate that that was the kick that wasn't a good one."
Once again, the Irish took advantage of Texas' untimely miscues. On second-and-10 from its own 43, Notre Dame went back to Denson, who finished the game with 158 yards on 24 carries. Denson broke to the outside and burned Texas for 22 yards. Two plays later on third down, Irish quarterback Ron Powlus found an open Malcolm Johnson for 12 yards, putting Notre Dame at the UT 22 and setting the stage for Sanson's heroics.
"It just slipped away, I mean we had it," Texas cornerback Bryant Westbrook said. "We had the whole game in our hands, the whole world in our hands, and we just let it fall out. We don't normally do that here at Texas. With all the tradition and pride, we've just got to keep it in our hands."
The Longhorns started the game strong, showing no signs of big-game jitters. Backed by a raucous crowd, Texas took the opening kickoff and marched 80 yards on 10 plays, including three passes to Adams for 36 yards and a touchdown.
The Irish responded with a drive of their own, kicking a 20-yard field goal to close the game to 7-3. Neither team scored again until the second quarter when Priest Holmes capitalized on a great block by guard Dan Neil and leaped over a defender into the end zone. The play capped a 75-yard drive and was reminiscent of Holmes' game-winning touchdown dive in the 1994 Sun Bowl. More importantly, it gave Texas a seemingly sturdy 14-3 lead.
But Notre Dame, used to big games and national television, came right back. Bypassing efforts to open up the passing game, Powlus and the Irish marched 80 yards on nine plays, seven of which were runs. Senior Robert Farmer reached the endzone on an 18-yard sprint, taking an option pitch to the left and scoring easily.
Texas went three and out on its next possession, and Notre Dame put together another impressive drive. It ended with a three-yard touchdown pass to fullback Marc Edwards, giving the Irish a 17-14 halftime lead. Edwards accounted for 61 yards on 14 carries, three catches for 22 yards, and a full day of crushing blocks.
"Notre Dame has been involved in a lot of great games, and there have been a lot of great games in this stadium," Holtz said. "But I don't know when I've been involved in one that went back and forth with the momentum and was this well played by both sides. ... When we fell behind 14-3 in the first half, it didn't look good, but our team answered with what may have been the most critical drive as we've had in two years that made it 14-10."
In the second half, Dawson booted a 47-yard field goal that tied the score with 8:09 remaining in the third quarter. Both teams went scoreless through the rest of the quarter, but in the fourth, the momentum began to swing in the Horns' favor. Texas began a drive at the UT 35-yard line, and handed the offense to Ricky Williams. The sophomore carried the ball four times in seven plays, gaining 42 of the 65 yards. From the one, Williams backed his way into the end zone, giving Texas a 24-17 lead with 10:53 remaining. Williams finished the game with 107 yards on 17 carries, his third straight 100-yard gain of the season.
"We knew that we were going to pass a lot in the first half to tire the defensive linemen out so that we could run in the second half," Williams said. "It worked to a tee. They were tired. It was hard for them to tackle."
But the Irish managed to kill the Horns' surge, avoiding mistakes and exploiting those made by Texas. Notre Dame scored the next 10 points, fending off Texas for the second year in a row and silencing the record crowd.
"It was a big game," Neil said. "The fans were excited. We were excited. We had everything ready, we had a good game plan, we were ready to go. We didn't do it at the end and they did. That's why Notre Dame is Notre Dame."
And that's why Texas will be left to ponder "what if?"
Late in the fourth quarter against Notre Dame Saturday, Texas found itself in a position that most people did not imagine.
The Longhorns had the ball, the momentum and a 24-17 lead. They had a chance to take time off the clock and put more points on the board, which they had shown they could do with a touchdown in their last possession. The Horns had momentary control of the game.
All of that changed, however, when James Brown threw an interception at Texas' own 33-yard line. The play, which was the only turnover of the game, erased any Texas momentum and led to an Irish touchdown and eventual victory.
"We thought the turnover battle may be the most important part of the game," Texas head coach John Mackovic said. "As the game unfolded, I realized neither team had turned the ball over. As it turned out, that turnover played a big part of the game."
For the Longhorns, the play took place in untimely and painful fashion. With less than seven minutes left in the game, Brown rolled to his right on a "waggle-type" play. Under pressure, he forced a pass to tight end Pat Fitzgerald that deflected off Notre Dame linebacker Kory Minor's helmet and softly landed in the hands of Irish linebacker Lyron Cobbins.
Many players said that the play got off to a bad start in the huddle. Players were confused and ended up in the wrong formation. Then, Notre Dame defensive end locked up Pat Fitzgerald at the line, before he got loose only to be covered tightly by Minor. Brown threw the ball in to very tight coverage and it took a perfect Irish bounce off Minor's helmet.
"I was just trying to get the ball to Pat," Brown said. "I guess I forced it. But that play was messed up from the start. We were in the wrong formation. When I think about it now, I probably should have called time out."
For the first two games of the season, Texas quarterback James Brown had avoided any interceptions. For more than three quarters in Saturday's game against Notre Dame, Brown's passes never came close to getting picked.
Cobbins also had a streak: he has intercepted a pass in every game this season and also picked off five in a four-game stretch in 1995. This time, Cobbins benefited from Minor's tight coverage of Fitzgerald.
"[Brown] was trying to make a miraculous pass," Cobbins said. "It was not a good decision on his part and we capitalized on it."
Said Fitzgerald: "We didn't execute the play properly and that was a factor in the game. I knew I was covered so I just tried to do everything I could to prevent an interception."
Mackovic said that the play that resulted in the interception is considered one of the safer plays in the book.
"It would be considered a high-perecentage play," Mackovic said. "It's a play where James can run the ball sometimes if he has to. It's generally a play where we execute when we have to and we don't have much problem with it at all."
Brown was sprinting from pressure, preventing him from scanning the field. If he had more time, he may have seen an open Mike Adams, who was crossing in front of Brown.
"I didn't see too many people around me," said Adams, who was shut out in the second half after catching six passes for 76 yards in the first half. "Whether he saw me or not, I don't know. I don't know what was going through his eyes. I know he was under pressure."
The interception was not the only important costly mistake made by the Horns. Texas was also hampered on offense by untimely penalties. They had to overcome holding and illegal motion penalties, which wiped out first downs.
"We probably made some mistakes, like holding cost us some runs," Mackovic said.
Said Texas fullback Ricky Williams: "It's hard for me to keep my head up after making all those mistakes we made on offense. I think we should have won the game. But we had a lot of penaties and we missed a couple of calls and ran the wrong way. It hurt us. A good team is not going to let you win the game if you make mistakes. Mistakes killed us."
For many Longhorns, the mistakes made the loss tougher to take. Fitzgerald said it was the toughest loss he'd ever been associated with at Texas. Adams said that Texas gave the game away.
"If I lose a game, I'd rather get beat badly because with a game like that, you know you made mistakes and you know you can come back and correct it," Adams said. "Here's a game where I think we dominated them on offense and their defense couldn't play with us. A few times, we broke down and we gave them a chance to capitalize and that's exactly what they did. It's a sour feeling. I'm bitter. We gave the game away."
The Horns had overcome the mistakes and still had a lead. The final mistake, however, was too much.
"When you get in a position to put the game on ice, the one thing you can't afford to do is turn the ball over," Adams said. "But we did."
Notre Dame head coach Lou Holtz decided to step aside prior to Saturday's game against Texas and let someone with a little more experience give the pregame pep talk.
Who better to deliver a rally cry than the man who has put together defenses that have dominated Texas in years past. For against the Longhorns, Notre Dame defensive coordinator Bob Davie posted an 8-1 record as a defensive coordinator at Texas A&M.
Now, his Fighting Irish defense is 2-0 against the Longhorns.
"One thing we talked about this game was faith," Holtz said about the pregame talk. "Having faith in the future. Having faith in your country. Having faith in Notre Dame. Having faith in people. Having faith in yourself.
"Notre Dame was founded on faith, and I thought that our players exemplified that."
One person whom Holtz has multitudes of faith in is kicker Jim Sanson. But prior to his 39-yard, game winning effort, it wasn't always so.
"I say this affectionately, but I've nicknamed him, and the kids called him all week, 'Foul Ball,'" Holtz said. "I say, 'You kick more foul balls than any place-kicker in the history of the game.' And to go in there with the game on the line was just absolutely unbelievable."
Prior to the Irish's final drive, Texas punter Mark Schultis gave a rather unbelievable effort himself.
The junior has 12 punts on the year with a season average of 42.4 yards per punt. But it was his final punt of the day that will be remembered -- not for where it landed on the field, but for where it landed on the track.
Schultis' punt on fourth-and-4 on the Texas 36 was uncharacteristically shanked for only 21 yards. Notre Dame's offense started what would become the game-winning drive on their own 43-yard line with :59 left to play.
"The main thing for us was to get into field goal range, and we had to give ourselves a chance to win," Notre Dame quarterback Ron Powlus said. "That was our goal going in there. If we knew that we could get good field position, we could get it. It's a real credit to our offensive line."
Powlus, who passed for only 127 yards on 13-of-25 attempts, had to take to the air immediately. His first pass to running back Autry Denson fell incomplete. Thus, Holtz dumped the pass and went back to the ground game.
Denson took the second-down handoff and broke outside for a gain of 22. Denson finished the game with 158 yards on 24 carries and one touchdown. The Longhorns' defense as a whole gave up 292 rushing yards.
"We controlled [the offensive line]," Denson said. "We pretty much did what we wanted to for most of the day. Besides a few busted assignments, we basically ran pretty well."
Powlus then hit tight end Pete Chryplewicz for a gain of two over the middle. With the ball on the Texas 33 and Notre Dame facing second-and-8, Powlus nearly hit a streaking Bobby Brown in the end zone after Brown had badly beaten Texas cornerback Bryant Westbrook.
"That was six," Powlus said. "We run a lot of ins [pass patterns], and if we run an in, we felt that the safety might jump it. We ran it, he jumped it, and I just overthrew him."
Holtz said: "We had not worked very much on the split end running a stutter and go during the last drive and we had him open, but we hadn't worked on it. But he was open by a pretty good margin."
Powlus' pass was overthrown forcing a third-and-8. On the next play, Holtz allowed Powlus to go to the air again, but this time, the result was a 11-yard curl route by split end Malcolm Johnson which was the catch that set the ball on the Texas 22 and set the stage for Sanson.
"We had a couple different things going on. The tight end was going to the middle, and we had a curl flat going to the side," Powlus said. "I was just reading the linebackers and the safety, and the safety jumped the tight end so I went to the curl."
The play gave Notre Dame a first down with only five ticks remaining on the Royal Memorial scoreboard. Texas head coach John Mackovic elected not to call a timeout to try to freeze the kicker, and Sanson ran on to the field and earned his team a win.
"I knew that everyone out there believed in me," Sanson said. "Everyone was out there doing their job, and it was my job to put it through, so I did."
Sanson has such a flair for the dramatic, but it's something that he became accustomed to at St. Mary's High School in Phoenix, Ariz.
"Yeah, I've had some game-winning kicks [in high school]," Sanson said. "But there's a difference between 80,000 and 1,000."
Quite a difference there is. Not many people can say that they kicked a game-winning field goal that had such national championship ramifications.
"Just because I call him Foul Ball doesn't mean that I don't believe in him," Holtz said. "He's got the guts of a burglar."
Notre Dame 3 14 0 10 -- 27
Texas 7 7 3 7 -- 24
Texas M.Adams 3 pass from J.Brown (Dawson kick), 3:36.
ND FG Sanson 20, 9:33.
Texas P.Holmes 3 run (Dawson kick), 6:30.
ND Farmer 18 run (Sanson kick), 10:52.
ND Edwards 3 pass from Powlus (Sanson kick), 14:33.
Texas FG Dawson 47, 6:51.
Texas Williams 1 run (Dawson kick), 4:07.
ND Denson 6 run (Sanson kick), 12:06.
ND FG Sanson 39, 15:00.
A--83,312.
Notre Dame Texas
First Downs 27 21
Rushes-Yards 54-292 35-134
Passing 127 178
Comp-Att-Int 13-25-0 14-30-1
Return Yards 1 13
Punts-Avg 5-37.6 5-42.4
Fumbles-Lost 1-0 1-0
Penalties-Yards 8-76 10-71
Time of Possession 34:00 26:00
INDIVIDUAL STATISTICS
RUSHING
Notre Dame - Denson 24-158, Edwards 14-61, Kinder 8-51, Farmer 2-20,
Powlus 6-2.
Texas - Williams 17-107, Mitchell 10-50, P.Holmes 3-2,
J.Brown 5-(minus-25).
PASSING
Notre Dame - Powlus 13-24-0-127, H.Smith 0-1-0-0.
Texas - J.Brown 14-30-1-178.
RECEIVING
Notre Dame - Mosley 3-41, Chryplewicz 3-27, M.Johnson 3-24, M.Edwards 3-22,
Nelson 1-13.
Texas - M.Adams 6-76, C.Jackson 3-42, Fitzgerald 3-33, D.Lewis 1-14,
Williams 1-13.