The Longhorns gored the Buckeyes, and Ohio States 28 seniors have to live with another BCS loss. After losing 2 national championship games in blowouts, this one was close, but they came up short against a great Texas team that was snubbed from the Championship this year.

The Buckeyes had their chances. They dominated the first half, especially the first quarter in which they almost tripled the Texas in terms of offensive production.

But the Ohio State offense managed only 6 points in the first half. They had an excellent ground game, but failed to move the ball in the Longhorns territory.

In the second quarter the Buckeyes had a chance to add a third field goal to make it 9-3, but a botched snap led to a shanked field goal attempt.

The real story is both missed opportunities in the short field and clock management to end the second half. With less than 2 minutes remaining in the half and in field goal range, Tressel elected to go deep on 2nd down and forced a 3rd and long. This meant that the clock stopped and on 3rd down with another incompleted pass, the there was enough time remaining for the Longhorns to manage a score late in the second half.

The last blunder came late in the game, when the longhorns were threatening with time winding down and less than a minute on the clock. The defense sent the linebackers on a blitz leaving the secondary in man coverage. One broken tackle was all it took for the Texas offense to take the ball into the end zone for the game winning score.

This reminds this Ohio State fan of the Championship game against the Miami Hurricanes when Tressel had first and goal late in the first half. Instead of running the ball and running the clock - thereby guaranteeing that the Miami offense would not have a chance to score late in the 2nd quarter - Tressel elected to throw on all three downs and leave enough time to score a follow up field goal before the half ended.

Although the Buckeyes went on to win that game in OT (largely due to a suspect pass interference call on 4th and goal) the game would have been over in regulation without the aid of late 2nd half points.

Jim Tressel needs to manage the clock better not only at the end of the game, but at the end of the first half.