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Five thoughts: Cotton Bowl
by FOXSports.com
1. Big 12 called into question
Bowl season roundup
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Bowl recaps and analysis:
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EagleBank: Wake 29, Navy 19 | CFN
New Mexico: Colo. St. 40, Fresno St. 35
St. Petersburg: S. Florida 41, Memphis 14
Las Vegas: Arizona 31, BYU 21 | CFN
New Orleans: SMU 30, Troy 27 (OT) | CFN
Poinsettia: TCU 17, Boise St. 16 | CFN
Hawaii: Notre Dame 49, Hawaii 21 | CFN
Motor City: FAU 24, Cen. Mich. 21 | CFN
Meineke: W. Virginia 31, UNC 30 | CFN
Champs Sports: Fla. St. 42, Wis. 13 | CFN
Emerald: Cal 24, Miami 17 | CFN
Independence: La. Tech 17, NIU 10 | CFN
Papajohns.com: Rutgers 29, N.C. St. 23
Alamo: Mizzou 30, N'west. 23 (OT) | CFN
Humanitarian: Maryland 42, Nevada 35
Texas: Rice 38, W. Michigan 14
Holiday: Oregon 42, Oklahoma St. 31 | CFN
Armed Forces: Houston 34, Air Force 28
Sun: Oregon St. 3, Pittsburgh 0 | CFN
Music City: Vandy 16, BC 14 | CFN
Insight: Kansas 42, Minnesota 21
Chick-fil-A: LSU 38, Georgia Tech 3
Outback: Iowa 31, South Carolina 10 | CFN
Capital One: Georgia 24, MSU 12 | CFN
Gator: Nebraska 26, Clemson 21
Rose: USC 38, Penn St. 24 | Analysis
Orange: Va. Tech 20, Cincinnati 7
Cotton: Ole Miss 47, Texas Tech 34
Liberty: Kentucky 25, East Carolina 19
Sugar: Utah 31, Alabama 17
International: UConn 38, Buffalo 20
Fiesta: Texas 24, Ohio St. 21 | Analysis
GMAC: Tulsa 45, Ball St. 13
BCS title: Florida 24, Oklahoma 14
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2. Was that your best, Tech?
There's a line from the old HBO movie, Barbarians at the Gate, about the takeover bids to acquire RJR Nabisco, when the final proposals are submitted: "Is this the best you can do ... the very best?"
This was it for Texas Tech. This was the peak of what a program in a division with traditional superpowers like Texas and Oklahoma can reach. Everyone was back on defense, ten starters returned on offense, and the coaching staff got an upgrade. And this was it, all getting blown up by an Ole Miss team that had time to prepare. The Tech offense wasn't bad, but it was hardly the killer it was expected to be with all the talent and all the experience it boasted, and now the question has to be out there about whether or not Mike Leach can be the type of coach who can take a program to the elite of the elite level. When is he going to put together a better team than this one? Can great defenses figure out how to slow the machine down when they get time to prepare? Remember, Alabama, and not this year's Alabama, stopped the Red Raiders cold a few years ago in the Cotton Bowl. Virginia and Minnesota had Tech dead-to-rights the last two bowl seasons, only to have Graham Harrell get hot at just the right time to pull off extraordinary comeback wins. Texas isn't going anywhere and Oklahoma isn't going to get worse in the near future, but Harrell and Michael Crabtree will be off to the next level. Oh sure, as long as Leach sticks around, Tech will put up big offensive numbers, but can the program ever get any higher than this? After this performance, there's still a lot to prove. Otherwise, just being a very good, very scary midrange Big 12 program isn't necessarily a bad thing. -- Pete Fiutak
3. What a final act for the Cotton
Baseball is the sport where something truly remarkable can happen on any given day, but the final Cotton Bowl in the Cotton Bowl stadium offered a fairly unique football case study. Consider the powerful pendulum swings that occurred in this game, usually on back-to-back plays, and sometimes on an individual play.
Four massive emotion swings took place in this game. The Rebels benefited from three of them, and that's not counting the devastating one-two punch of a pick-six and a long kick return that greatly increased UM's confidence level in the third quarter. Tech made a number of big plays; Ole Miss made even bigger plays, and more of them ... usually on the back end of a back-to-back sequence. Ball game. -- Matthew Zemek
4. Texas Tech isn't a fraud
After the kerfuffle surrounding the three-way tie in the Big 12 South, many will claim that this loss makes Texas Tech a fraud and a phony. Please don't go there. This was far more about Ole Miss flexing its muscles than Tech failing. Michael Crabtree wasn't very healthy, and some wild, emotion-swinging plays cut against the Red Raiders, such as a pick-six that took place because Crabtree slipped on the Cotton Bowl turf. That stuff happens. The real revelation here is that Ole Miss is a big-time team up and down its roster. Credit the Rebels for bringing their A-game and offering a defensive front that outplayed Tech's decorated offensive line. Both teams have plenty of athletes, but Ole Miss was--by far--the physically superior team. What Mike Leach might want to consider after losing this non-conference game is to beef up his out-of-conference schedule in future years. Tech scheduled two FCS opponents and 1-11 SMU to go along with 7-6 Nevada. Had Tech been willing to play a big boy from a power conference in September, perhaps an SEC school wouldn't have punched them in the mouth today. -- Matthew Zemek
5. Welcome to the party, Mr. Snead
Although he started slowly and wasn't perfect, Ole Miss' blowout of Texas Tech will officially go down as QB Jevan Snead's national coming-out party with the program. It was almost poetic that the former blue-chip recruit from the University of Texas returned back to his home state for his biggest moment, going 18-of-29 for 292 yards, three touchdowns and a pick. He did a nice job of bouncing back from that lone interception, which Darcel McBath took back for six, making a statement that he'll be one of the nation's top 10 quarterbacks of 2009. Snead has a rifle for an arm, and this first full season as the starter will really pay dividends a year from now. -- Richard Cirminiello
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