I want to say this unequivocally about the 1992 Baylor game:
Yeah, the officiating was beyond horrible. It’s actually on YouTube in its original broadcast (with commercials, evidently what you Austinites all saw if you watched on TV judging by the ads).
I actually took notes on the very obvious calls:
-Two ridiculous holding calls on Brockermeyer, and he evidently was so pissed off that Mackovic had to take him out.
-Clear fumble by Baylor recovered by Texas, ruled down by contact.
-Defensive pass interference on Texas that shouldn’t have been called and if anything should have been called on Baylor (this is the flea flicker play for those somewhat familiar with the game)
-Baylor receiver catches a pass on the flat, fumbles it clearly in bounds, Texas recovers, but the ref marks him out of bounds. It wasn’t a forward progress thing either because the hit that jarred the ball loose was instant and the first replay shown was with sound and you can clearly hear the whistles well after the ball was rolling on the ground.
-Touchdown Baylor (the last one), ball never broke the plane.
-Personal foul face mask on Texas when it clearly was incidental. Was on a play where Baylor was stuffed for a 5 yard loss on 2nd and 9. It’s actually a stretch to say this was even a penalty, but if it was, the correct ruling is incidental face mask, 5 yards on the end of the run, and that makes it 3rd and 9 instead of an automatic first down.
-There was also a play early in the game where Baylor gained 4 yards on first down, Texas gets flagged for a 5 yard face mask, it gets tacked onto the play and repeat the down, so 1st and 1?!
But with all that said, Texas had two chances to win the game at the end and Peter Gardere sucked shit through a straw. Baylor went for it on 4th down with like 6-7 minutes to play on their own 40, got stuffed because the QB dropped the snap. Gardere picked up 2 yards on the 1st play. But then, he doesn’t call mayday and back out of a pass play where a middle blitz is clearly coming, somehow bounces off the blitzer but in doing so he spins into the arms of the rush end for a 9 yard loss. He then drops back on 3rd and 17, tries to hit Duke on a 12 or so yard stop on the sideline but he’s well covered. On the replay, you can clearly see Baylor was using a soft cover 2 (this was back when zone coverages played out exactly as they’re drawn and it was beyond easy to beat it if you called the right play and had adequate protection) and Mike Adams was clear as day wide open in the middle void. Now, does he get the first if he gets the pass? Maybe and maybe the safeties rally and stop him short. But even if he’s stopped short, Texas is back in field goal range and you’re talking about Scott Szeredy with the wind at his back. The next series was even worse as Gardere just kept forcing passes into tight coverage.
So yeah the ref fuckery had a lot to do with it, but our beloved Peter Peter the Sooner Beater absolutely blew it at the end.