Wednesday, November 3, 2010

November 3, 1990: Bombs away

HOUSTON - David Klinger and the Houston Cougars took the run-and-shoot offense to the extreme in 1990. Game after game, Klinger put up passing numbers that would be considered a good month's work for most college quarterbacks. Games of 500 yards passing or more were common rather rather than rare. And the Cougars kept winning, so they kept with what worked.

For one game, though, Klinger was outshined. In the November 3 game against Texas Christian, Klinger threw for 563 yards and rushed for 62 more. Impressive numbers, for sure, but it was only his third-best passing game of the season - and only the second best passing total in the game that day. TCU's Matt Vogler threw for 690 yards himself as the two teams set college football records that remain to this day.

In Houston's 56-35 victory, the two teams set records for most combined pass attempts (135, with 79 for TCU and 56 for Houston), completed passes (81, 44 for TCU and 37 for Houston), and total passing yards. There were 13 scoring drives in the game, none of which took more than 1:40 off the clock. Looking at the numbers, it's remarkable that there wasn't even more scoring.

While TCU and Houston set many NCAA records that day, they didn't set any scoring records. In fact, that's not even the highest scoring game in the history of that rivalry; that honor goes to the 62-55 TCU victory in 2003.

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