College Football Rewind: 5 most important games from 2009 season

2. (3) Texas 13, (21) Nebraska 12

In what I can only describe as one of the ugliest, yet most beautiful disasters of a football game that I have ever seen, Texas needed a little bit of controversy to escape with the Big 12 title win over Ndamukong Suh and a very good Nebraska defense.

Nebraska held a very good Texas offense to just over 200 yards and Suh recorded 4.5 sacks for the defense, but like much of 2009, the Cornhuskers’ offense just could not keep up their end of the bargain, gaining only 106 yards of offense on 15 drives. That is just comically bad.

Nebraska led 12-10 late in the game when it looked like Texas quarterback Colt McCoy made a critical error by staying in the pocket for a second too long and letting the clock run out. He threw the ball away and it appeared that all time had run out, but upon review, it showed that a second was left and that the Longhorns would have one last field goal attempt to win the Big 12 and go to Pasadena to take on Alabama.

The field goal was good and Texas avoided an upset.

With a loss here, that would open the door for Cincinnati to go to the national championship and it would give Bo Pelini a much-needed Big 12 championship.

The other point I want to make is that if Nebraska had just a top 35 offense, they might have been able to make a national championship run. Their offense was ranked 66th and they wasted one of the greatest seasons ever by a defensive player in Suh who was a Heisman finalist as a defensive tackle. Cornhusker fans still think about this one.