Associated Press
ARLINGTON, Texas ó This is it for the Texas Longhorns, the chance they’ve been waiting for since last December.
There are no tiebreakers or computer formulas in their way.
All Colt McCoy and the No. 3 Longhorns have to do is beat No. 21 Nebraska in the Big 12 championship game tonight and they will be playing for the national championship.
Texas coach Mack Brown spent the past 12 months reminding his players they were spit out by the system last year. He challenged them to “take it away from the system” by winning all their games and, so far, they have.
Do it once more and the Longhorns (12-0) will clinch a spot in the BCS championship game Jan. 7 against the winner of the SEC championship game between No. 1 Florida and No. 2 Alabama.
“This is a team that started out in the top two or three in the country, and if we had not been in this game a lot of people would have felt like the team had not lived up to the standards,” Brown said Friday. “So they’ve had pressure every game. There’s been speculation about a lot of things every week and I don’t think it affects them very much. They just keep playing.”
The Huskers (9-3) can force their way into a BCS bowl with an upset.
It would be quite a coup for coach Bo Pelini ó and terrific payback for Nebraska, which was No. 3 and eyeing a national championship when Texas, a 20-point underdog, won the inaugural Big 12 title game in 1996.