You just knew that a late night college football game involving two schools from Berkeley and Austin was bound to get weird. California and Texas certainly delivered on that front in the first half on Saturday.
The Bears took a narrow 35-33 lead into the locker room thanks to a simply bonkers sequence to end the half that pretty much summed the night up for both teams.
Texas freshman Brandon Jones had just blocked a punt that rolled through the back of the end zone for a safety and a 33-28 lead with 1:38 left before halftime. Freshman phenom Shane Buechele, who suffered a hard hit to the chest and temporarily left the game, returned at quarterback the following series and promptly threw an interception that Cal safety Luke Rubenzer returned to the Texas 24 yard line.
Two plays later, Bears quarterback Davis Webb dropped an absolute perfect pass into the arms of Chad Hansen to improbably give Cal the lead after the offense spent most of the game playing catch up. It was the third touchdown throw of the night for Webb, a former Texas Tech signal-caller who has seen his fair share of the Longhorns.
Aside from the interception, his counterpart Buechele was impressive in his first road start in college, finding the end zone in impressive fashion when he a fired a 41-yard strike to a waiting Jacorey Warrick in the end zone. The UT offense didn’t seem to miss much of a beat with Buechele out and backup Tyrone Swoopes in, with the latter leading the team on two touchdown drives to help keep pace with the Bears.
Still, neither head coach can be all that happy with their defense after seeing plenty of big plays, missed tackles and numerous mental mistakes. Of course for those of us at home, it makes for must-see late night college football action that is bound to have a crazy second half encore.