People in Lubbock, Texas, will remember Thursday as a day their head coach, their favorite sun, knocked off a ranked, in-state rival. Everybody else will remember it as the day a frog that photobombed a rocket launch became an Internet sensation.
Are those two things related? It may be a stretch. But so would calling the game at Texas Tech "good" football. And while it's hard to imagine Rocket Frog survived his adventure, it's easy to believe he actually had a better day than the Frogs from TCU.
First, Rocket Frog. If you haven't seen him by now, this won't be the last time:
And then the day really turned nuts.
The TCU-Texas Tech game was not a good game. Not in the way people usually mean it when they use the word "good," anyway. But I don't want to call it bad, because I was laughing most of the time. It was more like performance art, sort of like a few years ago when Joaquin Phoenix said he had quit acting to start a rap career, and put on a series of weird rap shows .
But my job is to makes sense of this stuff. Usually I do that with words, but sometimes words fail. So this time I drew a picture.
I mean, is this any more out of place than a frog photobombing a NASA space launch?
Yeah, this was a game that involved a fox -- a living, breathing wild animal -- running around on the sideline in West Texas.
It was a game in which a TCU punt returner fielded a punt and just ran in a straight line directly into the end zone without making a single move or being touched a single time, only to have the touchdown taken away when officials said he called for a fair catch he (probably) did not call for.
It was a game that involved a Red Raider, DeAndre Washington, catching what appeared to be a 49-yard TD, only to inexplicably drop the ball before he actually entered the end zone. And it was a game spilling over with confusing officiating. The nadir was a moment late in the fourth quarter, when Texas Tech was driving for the clinching touchdown, but fumbled at the end of a first-down run. Replays showed with a reasonable level of clarity that Kenny Williams had lost a fumble to TCU, but he was ruled down by contact. Sensing a replay was coming, Texas Tech quickly snapped the ball. Because if you're going to review a play, you have to do it before the next snap.
Once again, if you are going to review a play, you have to do it before the next snap. These are the rules of football.
Well, no whistle blew and no referee waved his hands and nothing anybody could see indicated that the play was under review, so Texas Tech ran another play, it ended ... and then officials reviewed the previous play.
And didn't overturn the call.
But they did count the play Texas Tech ran immediately after the fumble, even though that play technically was never run because supposedly the previous play was under review. So what everybody thought should have been second down was shown on the field to be third down.
In other words, if this game were presented before a judge, that judge would throw it straight out of his courtroom and just tell everybody to try again.
Rookie Texas Tech coach Kliff Kingsbury, of course, is not going to give back his debut win, but let us all come together in agreement to acknowledge that Texas Tech did, indeed win the game 20-10 , and then let us never speak of this night again.
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