Two Saturdays Ago, the Nation Was One Tick of a [Derived Headline]

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TWO Saturdays ago, the nation was one tick of a Texas clock away from a cultural crisis. Nebraska led Texas 12-10 in the Big 12 Conference championship football game in Cowboys Stadium in Arlington. Texas had the ball on Nebraska's 29-yard line when time expired. Or so it seemed. Texas was unbeaten entering the game and was third in the Bowl Championship Series ranking. But that Saturday, Alabama, which was ranked second, defeated top-ranked Florida. Because, however, 3,600 seconds had elapsed in Arlington, a defeated Texas would not be playing Alabama Jan. 7 in the BCS game to determine the national champion.

But Texas was resuscitated by football's excruciating mania for perfection. A game is 60 minutes of actual football sliced into slivers and scattered among almost that many minutes of officials standing around brooding about whether they called the last play correctly.

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Two Saturdays Ago, the Nation Was One Tick of a [Derived Headline]

A replay official in Cowboys Stadium consulted videotape and decided that when the previous play ended, only 3,599 seconds of the game had elapsed. So one second was put bac...

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