They saw it coming, but this time Longhorns can’t dodge the blow

AUSTIN — It always hurts worse when you see it coming. An out-of-nowhere knockout punch is one thing. But to watch the fist flying toward you, to know exactly how and when it will land, and to be helpless to stop it?

That’s torture.

Saturday at Royal-Memorial Stadium, Texas saw its own demise coming from a mile away. The Longhorns saw it coming when they left more than two minutes for one of college football’s best quarterbacks to mount a comeback.

They saw it coming when West Virginia kept lining up and running at will against a UT defense powerless to make a tackle.

And on the two-point conversion that decided the game and sent them hurtling back into the middle of the Big 12 pack? The Longhorns saw Will Grier coming, right before he was gone.

MIKE FINGER

Commentary

Lined up on the right side of the line of scrimmage, UT defensive end Charles Omenihu was convinced Grier was going to run a quarterback draw to the left. He yelled it at tackle Chris Nelson. Nelson yelled it at his teammates on the other side.

And seconds later, Grier still scampered into the end zone to give the No. 13 Mountaineers a 42-41 victory over the No. 17 Longhorns, who had to live with the torture of watching their own demise unfold in slow motion.