Saturday, January 1 Longhorns close season with three straight losses
Associated Press
DALLAS -- With no big-play offensive threat and its top
defender missing, Texas never really had a chance in the
Cotton Bowl.
Even though the Longhorns (No. 18 ESPN/USA Today, No. 14 AP) were tied 3-3 with Arkansas (unranked ESPN/USA Today, No. 24 AP) at
halftime Saturday, the burden of playing without record-setting
receiver Kwame Cavil and Big 12 sacks leader Aaron Humphrey weighed
heavy in a 27-6 loss -- no matter how much Texas coach Mack Brown
and his players try to deny it.
“
We had plenty enough talent today and guys that were well-coached and guys that wanted to win
hard enough. We just didn't get the job done. ”
— Mack
Brown
"Our motto at the first of the year with this young team was no
excuses, and that's the way we are going to be today," Brown said.
"When you go into war and two of your guys get shot, you don't
quit, you don't start pointing fingers and you don't blame somebody
else.
"We had plenty enough talent today and guys that were
well-coached and guys that wanted to win hard enough. We just
didn't get the job done."
The Longhorns (9-5) ended the season with three straight losses,
not scoring an offensive touchdown in the final 10 quarters. They
lost 22-6 to Nebraska in the Big 12 title game and 20-16 at Texas
A&M in the regular-season finale.
The Cotton Bowl changed for Texas just 36 hours prior to
kickoff, when Brown tearfully announced the suspensions of Cavil
(100 catches for 1,188 yards), Humphrey (10 sacks) and two reserves
for unspecified reasons.
To make things worse, Cavil's backup, senior Jeremy Jones,
injured his ankle in practice Thursday and did not play.
Against Arkansas (8-4), Texas had just 185 total yards. The
Longhorns had 212 yards passing, but quarterbacks Major Applewhite
and Chris Simms were sacked eight times for minus-64 yards.
Applewhite and Simms combined to hit 24 of 39 passes to nine
receivers, but without the big-play guy in Cavil on the field,
Texas averaged 8.8 yards per completion and 5.4 per attempt.
"We were inept on offense," Brown said. "We couldn't run the
ball. When you can't run the ball, you can't protect. When you
can't protect, you can't throw it.
"So we really didn't do a real good job at anything."
The Texas defense almost came up with a safety -- twice. But on
consecutive plays, officials ruled Arkansas had gotten the ball
just inches out of the end zone.
"I was right there, it could have gone either way," defensive
end Cedric Woodard said.
Then quarterback Clint Stoerner hit Anthony Lucas for a 47-yard
completion, and later sidestepped a charging defender to find
Cedric Cobbs open for a 30-yard touchdown and a 10-3 lead.
Freshman Cory Redding, who replaced Humphrey in the starting
lineup, tipped an Arkansas pass on the first play of the game. He
finished with four tackles and was in on both sacks of Stoerner.
"It really didn't hurt a lot. It's just something that caught
everybody off-guard," Redding said of the suspensions. "Somebody
on the field has got to contribute to the team and step up. Throw
away the numbers and play football."
But Nos. 9 (Cavil) and 49 (Humphrey) might have made a big
difference.
