Bowling for Cotton...

My first assignment of the new year was just like the last of the year, more football, the last game of the season. The Cotton Bowl played it final game of its 73 years of existence at the actual Cotton Bowl stadium. Next year it is moving to Jerry Jones' $1 billion monstrosity that he is building in Arlington. And honestly, it's probably a good move. The Cotton Bowl is a great old stadium with a lot of character.

Translation: the place is a dump. I know, the city of Dallas just spent a fortune upgrading the stadium and making it look a lot nicer and putting in some bench seating, replacing the old stadium seats that were made for people a lot skinnier than those that are around today. But the place is still in pretty bad shape. First, the grass. This is the first year I've seen the grass still somewhat alive. Although they did still paint the grass green. Which I think is a new shade of green, because the stains on my knees (I almost always kneel when I'm shooting football) were a lot darker this year then in years past.

Now, despite all my bitching about the stadium, this is one of my favorite bowl games of the year and it is always a joy to shoot. The CBAA folks always do a nice job of putting the game on. Not to mention the game is usually a pretty good game, this year's contest was no different.

This year's game Texas Tech played Ole Miss in a game that almost no one game Ole Miss a chance in, myself included. As I've mentioned before, there are a number of local kids playing for Texas Tech and a few get some playing time too. Ole Miss, however, also had a kid with local ties playing as well. Starting quarterback Jevan Snead is from Stephenville. Snead originally went to Texas but was beat out his freshman year by Colt McCoy and ended up transferring to Mississippi.

So, not only was I there to cover the game, since Abilene has a pretty large Texas Tech contingent even without all the kids with local ties, but I also needed to get photos of the local players as well as Snead (above, handing off), since the chances of covering him again are really thin.

Tech struck first with a long touchdown drive, then on Ole Miss's next drive Snead threw an interception that was returned for a touchdown. It was starting to looking like the blowout that everyone was expecting. But Mississippi kept playing its game and made a touchdown long drive, by halftime Ole Miss was up 24-21.

The second half opened up like the way the first half ended. Mississippi was just dominating the game. Tech could get nothing going in the third quarter and ended up being down a couple scores going into the fourth quarter. Now, with their high octane offense, I figured if anyone could comeback it was the Red Raiders.

The fourth quarter started out with Tech mounting a nice touchdown drive, but it wasn't enough. The Rebels went down the field and scored again. The Texas Tech offense couldn't get it going in the second half consistently. There were a few really questionable play calls by Tech and basically they just fell apart.

Well I guess no one bothered to tell Ole Miss they weren't supposed to win the game because they won 47-34. And, quarterback Jevan Snead, who was playing his first game back in his home state since transferring from UT, made the best of it passing for a career high 292 yards. So naturally after the game was over I was seeking him out to hopefully get some post-game celebration shots. Well, I found him as he was running toward the end zone stands to celebrate with fans. And, I guess I wasn't the only one following him as he slapped hands with fans and friends because during this whole time I somehow ended up getting about 4 or 5 seconds of face time on national television and had no idea it had happened until a few minutes later when the text messages started rolling in, and then the next day when a number of friends told me they saw me after the game. I guess the good thing is I didn't do anything embarrassing like picking my nose or anything, so it ended up well.