HornsNation is counting down the top five moments of Texas’ 2012 season this week.
Play No. 3
The game: Texas won all three of its nonconference games but still needed to prove something. Oklahoma State was just the team to do that against. The Cowboys, although void of the talent it had put on the field in recent years, still was a formidable opponent and the game was at their place.
An early Big 12 win could provide Texas with confidence that its offense was on the right track and that the turnaround coach Mack Brown had not-so-cautiously predicted was also chugging right along.
The play: David Ash had put himself and his team in a terrible spot. Down two with 2:34 to go, Ash had thrown an incompletion, rushed for no gain and on third and 10 hit Jeremy Hills for a measly four yards. So it came down to 4th-and-6 for a quarterback who was trying to win his first big game and a team trying to shed the failures of the past.
Ash dropped back and found senior tight end D.J. Grant down the seam for 29 yards and the first down. The play gave the offense life and Ash confidence. Two plays later he hit Mike Davis for 32 yards down the sideline and Texas was at the Oklahoma State five with a first down. The Longhorns would go on to punch the ball in and win their first game against Oklahoma State in three years.
