Notes from a Football Weekend

SI.com’s Stewart Mandel reports from Dallas: “Mack Brown walked into his postgame news conference at the Cotton Bowl on Saturday with a beat-red face, disheveled hair and sweat-drenched Texas polo shirt. Having just survived the most grueling, back-and-forth edition of his 11-year rivalry with Oklahoma counterpart Bob Stoops, the Longhorns’ coach took a moment to reflect on his fifth-ranked team’s 45-35 conquest of the No. 1 Sooners – ‘one of the greatest football games I’ve ever seen,’ he called it — before putting the win in its proper perspective. ‘Winning this game makes next week’s game against Missouri even bigger,’ said Brown (left). ‘It puts us in a different place, and now we’re playing for a bigger goal.’”

The Longhorns ascended to No. 1 in the AP Top 25 during the regular season for the first time in 24 years in the wake of their resounding 45-35 victory over Oklahoma in the Red River Rivalry on Saturday. Texas, previously ranked fifth, made the largest jump to No. 1 in a single week since Miami went from No. 6 to No. 1 on Aug. 29, 1988.

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With the NFL, the trade deadline is more dead than anything else. Though speculation has centered around such high-profile players such as Detroit wide receiver Roy Williams and Kansas City tight end Tony Gonzalez have surfaced, no star is expected to be traded. If any trades go down — and they rarely do — they are expected to be of the “B” list players, not the headliners. Players that have been shopped in recent days include Dolphins quarterback John Beck and Lions wide receiver Shaun McDonald. Of course, the interest in each player has been, at best, minimal. Since the summer the Dolphins have attempted to trade Beck to no avail. At one point in the spring, the Dallas Cowboys expressed a modicum of interest and even offered a player that Bill Parcells once drafted. But the Dolphins rejected that offer.”

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Considering that the crazy win the Cardinals got over the Cowboys on Sunday - remember that it was the first time in NFL history that an OT game was decided on a blocked punt - I thought it would be appropriate to publish:

AN EPITAPH FOR THE COWBOYS’ SEASON: (Andrew Perloff, FanNation)

1. Tony Romo’s inability to win the big game is not a fluke.

Whatever that indescribable ability to will a team to victory  — think Johnny Unitas or John Elway –  Romo doesn’t have it. He doesn’t protect the ball well enough and, while he might be a leader in the locker room, the results of his leadership aren’t showing up on the field.

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