Texas Football: Alan Bowman’s Horns down comes back to bite him

In the win for the Texas football program over Texas Tech in the Big 12 opener on Sep. 26 in Lubbock, quarterback Alan Bowman got overconfident late.

In the most improbable of fashions, head coach Tom Herman saw his Texas football team comeback from down 15 points in just over three minutes left in the game to knock off the Texas Tech Red Raiders on the road in their Big 12 opener on Sep. 26. Texas rode a massive comeback late in the fourth quarter to nab the shocking 63-56 overtime victory in Lubbock on Saturday.

The win over Texas Tech was much closer than it was anticipated to be, but the Longhorns will take it. With the rival Oklahoma Sooners falling short in their Big 12 opener against the Kansas State Wildcats at home in Norman on the same day, the door is open for the Longhorns to take command in the conference standings and to represent in the College Football Playoff.

For most of the fourth quarter, it looked like the Red Raiders were going to assume complete control of this game. The likes of redshirt sophomore quarterback Alan Bowman and redshirt sophomore running back SaRodorick Thompson were going strong, and once the lead was extended to 56-41 late in the fourth it really looked like the win was sealed.

Bowman got so confident at one point of this game, that he flashed the famous “Horns down” hand sign after scoring a touchdown in the second half. This picture that was snapped of Bowman flashing the Horns down hand sign came when Texas Tech held that commanding 56-41 lead late in the fourth quarter.

How the game shifted for Texas football after “Horns down”

But it wouldn’t be long before the Longhorns were storming back behind the guidance of their star senior quarterback Sam Ehlinger to push the game into overtime. Texas scored on the following drive to bring Texas Tech’s lead down to eight points. And then the Longhorns recovered an unlikely onside kick from junior kicker Cameron Dicker to give them a chance to tie the game on their last drive.

Ehlinger tossed a touchdown to redshirt sophomore wide receiver Joshua Moore to bring the Texas Tech lead down to two points. And then junior wideout Brennan Eagles caught the pass from Ehlinger to convert on the two-point try.

It was not long then before Ehlinger found Moore in the end zone again to take the lead on the first drive of overtime. Bowman wouldn’t be able to lead the Red Raiders to tie the game on their first drive of overtime, thus handing Texas the win by the final score of 63-56.

Bowman registered 31 completions on 52 passing attempts, good for 325 passing yards, five passing touchdowns, and three interceptions. He had an up and down outing, but was solid most of the way for Texas Tech. At one point of the game he just got a bit overconfident with the Horns down hand sign.