Holiday Bowl: The Truth About Chris Jessie

Darin Phillips — Fri, 28 Dec 2007 04:31:00 -0500

According to ASU's head coach Dennis Erickson, Chris Jessie's Holiday Bowl boner "was one of the team's few bright spots."

Erickson added, "In my 35 or 40 years in college football...that's the most unusual play I have ever seen."

The young man who got the most TV time during this year's four hour and 20 minute Holiday Bowl was personally responsible for putting the fighting spirit back in the hearts of the Sun Devils.

Jessie completely shifted the momentum of the game two minutes into the second quarter. With ASU down by 21 at the end of the first, the Sun Devils really needed a big play, and Jessie delivered.

Jessie was a virtual no-name coming into the Holiday Bowl. But during the 12-minute discussion on the field about his play, Chris Jessie became an instant phenomenon.

The mystery surrounding this young man took nearly 20 minutes to resolve, even in the most information-rich era in the history of man.

Questions about his name, his position, and his intelligence sprang up in chat rooms, blogs, and wikis all over the Internet. On Longhorn fan sites and sports gambling sites, there were strong accusations about the motive and intent behind his play.

There were even a disturbing number of people trying to locate personal information on Chris just to exact some measure of revenge. Jessie was suddenly famous for all the wrong reasons.

When Chris' name was first revealed, I Googled him. He didn't show up anywhere in the first eight pages of "Chris Jessie" links. One minute later, in the News search on Google, he showed up five times on the first page of links.

30 seconds after that (90 seconds after his name was first shared), Jessie's name was linked to all but one news article on the first News search page and all of the second page links.

By the fourth minute after his name was leaked on a popular Longhorns blog site, Jessie owned every News article associated with "Chris Jessie" on the first five pages of Google's search results.

And, for some reason, nepotism wasn't mentioned in any of the links despite the obvious connection to Texas head coach Mack Brown.

Chris Jessie is Mack Brown's step son.

Chris Jessie is on Mack's operations staff under Cleve Bryant. Chris Jessie helps coordinate the team's travel. Chris Jessie was on the field (along with several other staff members) while a play was still in progress.

Jessie explained what happened during his postgame interview.

"It was just natural instinct. I thought it was a forward pass. I was looking at the ball being thrown and I was waiting for a grounding penalty. When I realized that the ball was in play, I jumped back."

Jessie went on to assert that he did not touch the ball while it was in play.

"I didn't touch it. I didn't touch it. The focus shouldn't be on me."

The result of Jessie's stepping onto the field and, in the opinion of the officials who had video replay available to them, touching a backwards lateral with his left thumb, was ASU's getting the ball seven yards from the end zone.

If Chris Jessie hadn't excitedly signaled intentional grounding while stepping onto the field and then reached down to pick up the football—despite no whistle and a thundering herd of players rushing at him—UT would've had possession 43 yards from the end zone.

The Sun Devils were pumped up by Jessie's play and immediately scored a touchdown to move within 14 of the Longhorns. Arizona State's defense continued the surge by stopping Texas on their next possession.

Chris Jessie had turned the tide against his step dad's team.

Why was a political science major from Colorado State who helps book the team's travel even on the sidelines?

I suspect Coach Brown will be instituting a few new sideline guidelines for the 2008 season.

One other burning question remains: Who will do the extra set of up-downs for Chris Jessie's mistake?

As the Longhorn coaches review tape, they count the number of plays that were not up to Texas' high standards. When a player is NOS (Not Our Standard), the consequence is that teammates must do an extra set of up-downs to emphasize the impact of a mistake on the entire team.

Jessie's mistake should certainly warrant some NOS up-downs. Will the team members doing the extra exercise include family members?

Languishing Longhorns: What's Wrong with the Texas Defense?

Darin Phillips — Thu, 27 Dec 2007 03:06:25 -0500

Texas has long been heralded as a recruiting powerhouse.

In recent years, top talent has poured in from all over the state of Texas, along with a few top-100 recruits from elsewhere in the US. Many of these exceptional players have gone on to careers in the NFL, including three defensive backs from last year's class.

So can someone please explain why Texas' defenses over the past three seasons have been so mediocre?

Defensive coordinator Gene Chizik was brought to Austin to reproduce the best defense in Division I, but his best season came only when the Longhorns had the best athlete in all of college football on offense.

Vince Young single-handedly helped the UT defense thrive for two seasons by keeping them off of the field. Once Vince left for the NFL, Chizik lucked out again with Colt McCoy's stellar freshman season—but even then the Horns' pass defense was exposed.

My question: If the talent was there, why couldn't the team stop opposing quarterbacks from airing it out week after week?

UT ranked 99th out of 119 teams against the pass in 2006. One might argue that several teams in the Big 12 have pass-happy offenses, including Texas Tech and Nebraska. However, Texas A&M's passing attack was ranked 98th in the country going into the UT game...and the Aggies had their best passing game of the entire year against the Longhorns.

This year, the Horns are ranked 109th nationally against the pass. They gave up an average of over 500 yards on defense the last four games, most of them through the air.

Is it the unimaginative defensive scheme?

Duane Akina inherited a very talented group from Chizik. Even though three key players moved on to the NFL, the rebuilding seemed to occur more on the offensive side of the ball. But Texas rarely, if ever, stunted or blitzed on pass plays.

The result?

The front line didn't get to the quarterback, which left receivers plenty of time to create space. Given enough time, most quarterbacks will eventually find at least one open target.

Coach Mack Brown is going to have to take a long, hard look at the issues on the defensive side of the ball. Texas fans and alumni aren't going to sit idly by and accept mediocrity.

The Longhorn defense shouldn't rank lower than 30th out of 119 teams on pass defense next year. Someone, somehow, is going to have to find a way to get the job done.

Bleacher Report - Articles by Darin Phillips

Holiday Bowl: The Truth About Chris Jessie

Languishing Longhorns: What's Wrong with the Texas Defense?