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Former Alabama running back Damien Harris critical of Texas’s play calling on goal line sequence
Former Alabama star running back Damien Harris won 2 national championships in Tuscaloosa, so he knows what it takes to get it done in the biggest moments.
He was a freshman backup on the 2015 Crimson Tide team that won it all, and then he was a mainstay on the 2017 national championship team at Alabama, rushing for exactly 1,000 yards with 11 touchdowns.
On Friday night, Texas desperately needed a touchdown in the waning moments of the College Football Playoff semifinal against Ohio State. The Longhorns were down 21-14, but they had a first-and-goal at the Buckeyes’ 1-yard line. Surely, Texas could get 1 yard in 4 plays, right?
Wrong.
In fact, it all went horribly wrong for the Longhorns after that, and the possession ended with Jack Sawyer running the other way on an 83-yard fumble return for a touchdown that put the game away and sent Ohio State to the national title game.
All of this had Harris fuming on the Until Saturday podcast, specifically that 2nd-and-goal call from the 1-yard line when Texas running back Quintrevion Wisner took a sweep to the left side and lost 7 yards back to the OSU 8-yard line.
“Nothing makes me more mad as a running back than when people try to run the ball east and west and you’re on the 1? My man Bill Belichick would’ve put out a road map — The end zone is this way, not that way,” Harris said.
In the end, the east-and-west thing went nowhere, Texas never scored that tying TD, and now the Longhorns will be sitting at home while Ohio State and Notre Dame play for the national title on Jan. 20.
Cory Nightingale, a former sportswriter and sports editor at the Miami Herald and Palm Beach Post, is a South Florida-based freelance writer who covers Alabama for SaturdayDownSouth.com.