Two games in one: Texas Tech won the Rodeo Bowl, but can it conquer Ole Miss for the real prize?
HOUSTON — Behren Morton dove to grab a ribbon from a calf's tail. When the Texas Tech quarterback failed, he scrambled to his feet and snatched it on his second try, stopping the clock at NRG Arena.
Trey Wolff, having dropped to his knees in pursuit of another calf, was fortunate not to get hit by a set of flying hooves.
Jacob Rodriguez sprinted from one end of NRG Arena to the other with a stuffed toy horse around his waist as part of a winning Texas Tech relay team. A month ago, Rodriguez was gimpy on a sprained ankle. Now the ankle looks OK.
Tech head athletic trainer Drew Krueger held his breath Monday night during the Rodeo Bowl. So did Red Raiders coach Joey McGuire.
"Yeah, there was a couple of times I was a little nervous," McGuire said.
Texas Tech won five events to Ole Miss's two in the seven-event competition staged annually as a fun-filled lead-up to the Texas Bowl, which unfolds Wednesday night at NRG Stadium.
One of the events the Red Raiders won was chalk-branding a calf, each team doing it once for time. Wolff, safety Cole Boyd and tight end Charlie Robinson downed the calf, which was given a head start, and Morton raced in to apply the "brand". Boyd took it down after Wolff's undaunted pursuit.
"Whenever Wolff grabbed the calf's tail," McGuire said, "I (thought), 'Don't get kicked.' I mean, that'd be a heck of a deal, our kicker get kicked by a calf and not be able to play in the game."
Especially a kicker who's made 18 of 21 field goals this year, including game winners in overtime to beat Texas and Oklahoma.
When the two teams get down to the serious business of football at 8 p.m. Wednesday, McGuire can go back to worrying about what he came here for: to contain Ole Miss' potent offense and its star freshman, Quinshon Judkins.
With a string of practices behind them, the hay mostly in the barn as Spike Dykes used to say before a game, the coaches' personalities were on display. No letdown when McGuire, known for his exuberance, is on one side, and Lane Kiffin, known for his blunt takes and sharp humor, is on the other.
During the team luncheon on Tuesday, the Ole Miss coach broke up the banquet hall crowd, with an assessment of his team's showing the night before.
"We don't have a lot of Texas players, so we got beat a little bit at the rodeo," Kiffin said. Everyone laughed, and Kiffin added, "We didn't have a really good plan."
Over the weekend in Houston, McGuire elicited chuckles when asked to reflect upon Christmases past.
"I love Christmas," he said. "In fact, a lot of times I was probably a little too excited. I think I probably got a spanking every Christmas Eve because I was the kid that was always in the presents.
"My uncles would say, 'Could you settle him down a little bit, George?' George is my dad. So I usually got in trouble, because I was always in the presents."
Kiffin is known for sharing less humorous opinions. Among them are the Ole Miss coach's candid takes on the state of college football. He calls it as he sees it in an era when liberalized transfer rules and the impact of name, image and likeness payments has rocked college football.
"We're a professional sport," Kiffin told Sports Illustrated in May, "and they are professional players."
With the NCAA transfer portal now in a 45-day open window, the subject came up Monday after the Rebels arrived in Houston.
"It's just a strange world we're in now in college football," Kiffin told reporters, "and like I've said before, I just describe it as what it is.
"Now you're seeing superpowers, on top of signing great high-school classes, now they figure out the best players around — including in their own conference — and just go buy 'em. Some people like when I don't say it is what it is, but I think a lot of other people appreciate that's what's going on right now.
"You have no other system like that in any other sports. It'd be like in the NFL, allowing people to pick in the draft and then have no (salary) cap and they can just go buy players from other teams. ... So it's a good time to be a player. It's a good time to be a super power."
McGuire and Kiffin had never met before this week in Houston. The Tech coach said he admires his Ole Miss counterpart.
Asked whether he'd have to turn up his personality to match Kiffin's persona, McGuire said, "You're not going to match his now."
"I think he's great for college football," McGuire said. "I think there's so many people that take so many things too serious. There's a lot of angry people, for whatever reason, of 'This guy's saying this about this guy' or whatever's going on.
"He says what he says, and it's usually right on. I mean, he's usually speaking the truth. It's just a lot of people don't want to hear the truth whenever it comes to some of that stuff, whether it's the portal or NIL or anything like that. I love it, because he kind of keeps it all in perspective."
This article originally appeared on Lubbock Avalanche-Journal: Two bowls in one: Tech won Rodeo Bowl, but can it take down Ole Miss for the real prize?
