James Brown: Talking “Roll Left” And Its Significance At UT

James Brown:
Talking “Roll Left” And Its Significance At UT

Texas’ James Brown talks about the most famous play in Big 12 Championship history and why he and his coach didn’t hesitate at all to call the play.

I have to give coach Mackovic his props for that play.

Before the game he was talking to the team and he said there’s going to be a time in this game where we’re going to have to make a decision. He said that if it was a short yardage play, then that was going to be the play that he was going to call.

So it was already predetermined and I know that’s why he didn’t really hesitate to make the call. We had a TV timeout so he had a little bit of time to think about it, but it was an opportunity for him to make his words come true.

That’s why when he called it, it wasn’t a big deal. And it was a good play. It was a successful play for us. It was just a goal line package play, something we’d run at the goal line.

It’s a rock and roll package. Rock was the run, roll was the play action pass. That’s why it’s called “roll left.”

Nebraska, they were known for their defense back then, so they definitely thought we were going to quarterback sneak. We had three running backs in the backfield and they thought that we were just going to pound it for that one inch that we needed.

I had the option to run and I knew Nebraska had a good defense. So I was telling myself after this play action fake my back is to the defense so I have to come out of this roll hard and fast, and that’s what I did. I came out hard and fast because I thought I might have to run for it or run for my life.

I had the opportunity to look short and my short tight end was open but I glanced deep and Derek Lewis was wide open about 15-20 yards down the field so I just threw him a nice little easy pass and that was that play.

It was a gutsy call because it was in our territory and we had the lead, but if we had punted the ball I don’t think we could’ve stopped Nebraska. They were moving the ball pretty good at the time.

That pass was probably the biggest pass of my career; the one that had the most merit and the most weight. But in terms of it being a good read, and a good spiral and a hard throw, it wasn’t any of those. It was a pass like I throw to an eight-year-old kid or something.

That first Big 12 Championship win was big for our program. We played in the old Southwest Conference and we played well and going into the Big 12 conference, most people thought that the Big 8 schools would dominate the new Big 12.

I know we took a lot of recruits that would’ve gone to other Big 12 schools in 1997 and 1998 and that’s when we started winning. It’s all about recruiting. And us winning that fist Big 12 Championship gave us a leg up in the recruiting war. After that game the program took off and eventually led to a National Championship in 2005.

I got a few calls about “roll left” this week because of the irony of the situation this year. When we played Nebraska they were No. 3 in the nation and now Texas is No. 3 in the nation. They were playing for a national championship and now we are too.

So it’s pretty ironic. I’m just hoping that they don’t do us like we did them. That would be pretty upsetting. No pun intended.