NCAA Football 06: 2005 Texas football season re-simulation Week 2

In Week 2 of the “NCAA Football 06” re-simulation for Texas football in the 2005 season, No. 8 Ohio State hosts the Longhorns.

A regular season opener win for the Texas football program in the official Hook’Em Headlines “NCAA Football 06” re-simulation of the 2005 campaign came in dominant fashion. Texas knocked off the Louisiana-Lafayette Ragin’ Cajuns by the final score of 63-24. They got their warm-up game out of the way in Week 1 before the real challenge would come the following weekend.

In Week 2, the Texas Longhorns football program in this NCAA Football 06 simulation was set to take on the Ohio State Buckeyes on the road in Columbus. Ohio State came in with a record of 1-0, as did the Longhorns.

Each team also carried a top 10 ranking into this game. Texas moved up to the No. 4 slot in the rankings this week, with Ohio State sliding up to No. 8 after their season opening win. Texas started out the regular season with the No. 6 ranking in the Coaches Poll.

A very slow start would plague the Longhorns in the first half against Ohio State. Part of that was due to a key injury that we’ll cover later in this piece. Texas would not score a single point in the first quarter, with quarterback Troy Smith, wide receiver Ted Ginn Jr., and the Buckeyes coming up with one field goal.

The first 15 minutes would belong to Ohio State. The second quarter would see the Texas offense finally get up and running. Junior quarterback Vince Young would get on the board with the Longhorns first touchdown of the game, and it came through the air. Ohio State would also get their first touchdown of the game in the second quarter.

A field goal also from the Longhorns just before halftime would tie the game up heading into the locker rooms. But another slow start out of the gate in the second half would get the Longhorns offense nowhere. It’s not hard to tell where that difficulty would come from, though.

VY would get injured in the first half, sending in backup quarterback Matt Nordgren. Getting tossed into the fire in a road game like this would phase most backup quarterbacks, but not Nordgren in this case. The offense did slow down a bit as Nordgren got in rhythm, but the fourth quarter would see Texas take off.

Texas tied Ohio State in the third quarter, with each team coming up with one field goal a piece. With the game tied at 13, the Longhorns went into a scoring frenzy in the final 15 minutes. Nordgren got the Longhorns on the board with one passing touchdown early in the fourth quarter. Texas would also add two more on the ground.

A 21-3 edge in the fourth quarter would power the Longhorns to nab the huge 34-20 convincing road win over the Buckeyes. Nordgren came in relief and gave the Longhorns a huge boost. Running back Selvin Young would also give the Longhorns a boost on the ground, with more than 50 rushing yards and one touchdown alone in the second half.

While the Longhorns got the big road victory over a top 10 foe in Ohio State, it didn’t come without a cost. Texas would miss VY due to injury for a reported three weeks after the win. This will send Nordgren into game action for the next couple games at least.

The good news is that Nordgren looked really good against the Buckeyes, and he’s still an 84 overall quarterback. Texas could be in a much worse situation given the injury to their star dual-threat quarterback.

In the top 5 in the Coaches’ Poll for Week 4, Texas would rank only behind the USC Trojans. The Tennessee Volunteers would remain undefeated and ranked third behind the Longhorns. And the rest of the top five was rounded out by the Iowa Hawkeyes and Louisville Cardinals.

The Heisman race also took an interesting turn for Week 4. USC quarterback Matt Leinart remained at the top of the Heisman Watch. He was followed by Oklahoma Sooners running back Adrian Peterson, Florida State Seminoles running back Leon Washington, Florida Gators running back Deshawn Wynn, and LSU Tigers running back Alley Broussard. This group of running backs makes up a very interesting group since Broussard would wind up missing the entirety of the 2005 college football season due to an infection he would get after a surgery.

Nonetheless, Texas was setup for a pivotal matchup against the in-state Group of Five foe Rice Owls. This could be lined up as a trap for the Longhorns since they are missing VY and this comes one game before the Big 12 opener.

You can view the last part of the series of the NCAA Football 06 re-simulation of the Longhorns 2005 national title winning season here, when they took down ULL in the regular season opener. The actual game that took place between Texas and Ohio State in 2005 saw the former take down the latter by the final score of 24-21 on the road.

Texas 2005 Re-Sim Record: 2-0

Actual Record: 2-0