By Steve Habel/Senior Editor
The extra point kick in college football, taken from the 10-yard line, is the most basic and near-automatic of plays. So when Texas’ Nick Rose lined up to punctuate the final scintillating touchdown run by Jerrod Heard with the kick that would tie the Longhorns’ game with California with 1:11 to play, coach Charlie Strong didn’t even bother to watch what was happening on the field.
“Hey, it’s an extra-point kick, and that’s automatic, right?” Strong said. “Then I looked up and saw one of the Cal players yelling and running down the field and I was like, ‘oh my God.’”
Rose had his PAT partially blocked and it missed wide right, securing Cal’s 45-44 victory over Texas before a feverish, and then stunned, crowd of 91,568 fans Saturday at Darrell K Royal-Texas Memorial Stadium.
The blocked kick placed an ultimate [s2If current_user_can(access_s2member_level2)]and irreversible down note on the Longhorns’ furious rally from 21 points behind with less than 14 minutes to play. Heard scored twice in the final quarter, on a 13-yard, cross-field run that started on the right and ended in the front-left corner of the end zone and on his final carry, a 45-yard sprint to paydirt on a quarterback draw.
Heard ended up with 527 yards of total offense, 364 passing and 163 on 24 carries and scored three touchdowns. The Longhorns (1-2) racked up 650 yards of total offense, the eighth-best mark in school history, but still left the stadium with a loss.
“This one hurts, and that’s good, because it should,” Strong said. “That’s the first time I’ve seen guys really hurting like that. They’re beginning to take ownership of this team and that’s going to go a long ways. I’m proud of the way they continued to play.”
Texas lost because it allowed the Golden Bears (3-0) 548 yards of offense, including 280 yards on the ground, most of that earned right up the middle where the Longhorns are supposed to be at their strongest.
“The defense is a major concern right now,” Strong said. “We haven’t played good defense for any of our three games this season and we have not been able to make teams one-dimensional, which is how you win with defense.
“We’re playing a lot of guys but we’re going to have to play much better.”
The two teams traded punches in the first half as offense ruled the proceedings. Cal racked up 337 yards in the first half while the Longhorns had 317, with Heard producing big play after big play and the Texas offensive line giving the fire-footed quarterback the time to throw the deep pass and scamper off through the lanes they opened.
The Golden Bears scored first, moving 64 yards in 11 plays to Jared Goff’s six-yard touchdown pass to Maurice Harris. Texas answered with a Heard two-yard touchdown run in which he took on four Cal defenders on a naked bootleg and won the battle, stretching over the goal line while being tackled.
Rose added a 27-yard field goal early in the second quarter and Goff replied with a 17-yard touchdown pass to Kenny Lawler on fourth down to give the Golden Bears a 14-10 lead.
Gray added two touchdown runs, from four and six yards, respectively, in a six-minute stretch to push the Longhorns’ advantage to 24-14.
The first culminated a 95-yard Texas drive on which Heard sprinted 34 yards and then passed deep to John Burt for 43 yards to the Cal 6. The second came after Goff was sacked by Shiro Davis and fumbled, with the loose ball picked up by Desmond Jackson and returned to the shadow of the Golden Bears end zone.
All the good feelings fought for by the Longhorns’ offense in that key stretch of the second quarter faded when Cal covered 75 yards in just four plays to cut the Texas lead to 24-21 on Vic Enwere’s 1-yard touchdown run with 52 seconds remaining in the half.
Then Heard uncorked his first collegiate interception — taken by the Golden Bears’ Jonathan Johnson and returned to the UT 30 — which led to a game-tying 34-yard field goal.
Heard fumbled while being sacked on the Longhorns’ first possession of the third quarter and Cal converted that turnover into another Enwere touchdown run on fourth down, again from a yard out, to push ahead, 31-24.
Goff engineered a 71-yard, eight-play drive on the Golden Bears’ ensuing possession, finding Lawler on a three-yard jump ball touchdown pass with 4:28 left in the third quarter to put the Longhorns further in arrears. Cal added to its lead on Khalfani Muhammad’s 74-yard touchdown run that ended up being the difference in the game.
Heard’s two fourth-quarter touchdowns were sandwiched around a 27-yard touchdown run by D’Onta Foreman.
“We never gave up, and we did a lot of things right tonight, but we have to get better and we know it,” Heard said. “At the end there was no hesitation on the offense — we knew what we had to do and had the confidence to go get it done. We’ll move forward from this and be a better team.”
Texas had all the momentum and might have found a way to win if Rose had just converted the simplest play in the game. But one play does not win or lose any game.
The Longhorns will have to find a way to rebound from the disappointment of the loss to Cal and pull themselves together in time for Saturday’s Big 12 Conference opener, at home at 2:30 p.m., against undefeated Oklahoma State.
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