When one hears that a college football team suffered a historic fourth-quarter collapse, one only thinks of two teams, both of them in the Big Ten: Michigan State and Minnesota. Last night, it was the Golden Gophers who gave their opponent an entree into the record books, as they have up a 31-point lead in the second half to lose the Insight Bowl in overtime to Texas Tech:
The Gophers football team played arguably its finest half of football this season before halftime and built a 38-7 lead against the Texas Tech Red Raiders in the third quarter of the Insight Bowl …
And then gave it all away.
Shannon Woods’ 3-yard touchdown run in overtime capped the largest comeback in NCAA Division I-A bowl game history as Texas Tech stunned Minnesota 44-41 before an announced crowd of 48,391 at Sun Devil Stadium.
“Needless to say, that was a game of two different halves,” Gophers coach Glen Mason said. “All coaches preach that no lead is sufficient until the clock says it’s mathematically impossible to come back.”
Unfortunately, I watched the Michigan game in 2001, coached by Glen Mason, and saw pretty much the same thing — a team that ran up a decent lead and then forgot that football games last 60 minutes. I missed this collapse on TV, but somehow I don’t feel badly about that this morning.
The Gophers have their first losing season since that 2001 season. Perhaps it’s time for a change.