This is far from the first time I’ve used Mountain Dew for the Mountaineers. Seems like I alternate between the Dew and Mounds candy bars for that team. But after I posted the 2021 Dew pic on Facebook, I learned that the soda has an additional connection to West Virginia!
In spite of my unintentionally appropriate spelling medium, we still lost our sixth in a row. Boo.
Hello, Mr. Robinson! Bijan Robinson ran for a (then) career-high 117 yards, and the Horns held off the “Mound-aneers.”
Dede couldn’t make it to this game, so Anne joined us in the stands. It was an unseasonably warm afternoon, so after melting in the upper deck, we found a cool spot under the shade in the lower level.
This was also John T.’s last game for the season, so we took our traditional end-of-season pic before going our separate ways.
This game was on my daughter’s birthday eve, so I got to watch Texas beat West Virginia from a comfy booth at Lubbock’s Walk-On’s Sports Bistreaux. It was fun to cheer FOR the team most other restaurant patrons were actively cheering AGAINST!
Because I was on the road, Katie and I improvised my TEXAS spelling, using peppers from my burger to form the letters representing our red-hot Longhorn team.
The Horns won, but my spelling photo is lost! Oopsie. Good thing the Texas D was put together than my photo organization system.
With this win over #24 West Virginia, the Horns became bowl eligible. Hooray for extending the season!
Nov. 12, 2016 • DKR
I never buy Mounds or Almond Joy. Why would I waste a caloric splurge on anything with toenails, I mean COCONUT, in it? Disgusting! With West Virginia next on the schedule, though, I made an exception.
We Texans are quick to point out that the Mountaineers’ home state’s “mountains” aren’t so mountainous. The highest point in Texas is nearly 4,000 feet higher than West Virginia’s tallest mountain! To rub it in, instead of finding mountains, I spelled Texas with mere Mounds.
Almost as disgusting as coconut? Losing our first home game to the #11 Mountaineers.
Much sweeter? Having Katie surprise her brother when we picked him up for the game. 🙂 She drove in from Lubbock Friday night, and we left at early:30 to get Ryan and head to the stadium.
Why I don’t care for 11 a.m. kickoffs
Aren’t they cute?
I made them pose with their dad’s books. They were thrilled.
Hook ’Em dressed in camo for the armed services tribute.
Big fan of the flyover!
UT System Chancellor William McRaven honored.
Lifetime Longhorn Olympians were honored.
Then the LHB did its armed services medley, one of my faves.
Coast Guard
Army
Navy
Marines
Air Force
Texas 33, West Virginia 16Continuing last year’s mountain theme for the Mountaineers, this week we spelled Texas with Clif Bars. Thanks to my unfortunate lack of confidence, I thought the cliff-hanging climber on the package would be symbolic of this game: tough to watch and in danger of ending our season. But hey! We WON! And my tune changed from “We’re doomed” to “We never doubted!”
This game had it all: goal-line stands, a safety, long runs, nice passes. The first half was just flat-out FUN. But even with a 21-point lead, I still wondered we could really beat the 23rd-ranked Mountaineers.
Sure enough, the ’Neers nearly came back, cutting our lead to 10 with lots of time left. Our offense was stone cold, and it just felt like this one was slipping away. But thanks to some killer D (not to mention the well-timed, momentum-shifting safety), our guys held onto the lead and the Tower was orange once again.
They say it’s easier to address problems after a win than after a loss. I hope that’s true because we still have mucho problemos. The flat offense and lack of production in the second half is especially concerning. Too many dropped passes, seemingly wrong routes run, dumb penalties… We need one more win to be bowl eligible, and those kinds of mistakes ain’t gonna cut it.
In spite of those issues, though, I’ll take the W! “Ol’ ugly is better than ol’ nothin’,” and this “ol’ ugly” was a sight for sore eyes. I’m proud of the way this suspension-depleted and injury-decimated team held on to win, and I was so very happy for these kids (and coaches) who pulled off the upset. You have to smile when you see this:
Tailgate, pregame, game and halftime highlights:
Texas 47, West Virginia 40In honor of the Mountaineers, this week we feature “mountain” candy: Andes mints and Toblerone chocolate. Of course, West Virginians only WISH their mountains were as majestic as the ones in South America and Switzerland. In fact, WVa’s highest point, at 4,861 feet, is more pipsqueak than peak compared to Texas’ highest, Guadalupe Peak, at 8,751.
Considering the small stature of West Virginia’s “mountains,” I probably should’ve used coconut Mounds instead. At least this candy gave me a chance to show off the bear hidden in the Toblerone mountain logo:
How is that relevant? Take a wild guess what the state animal of West Virginia is!
Enough of the candy talk. What about the game? Once again, the TEXAS spelling was much sweeter than the on-field action. I’d much rather talk about mountain heights or hidden logo images than discuss this game. (Seriously. Have you ever really looked at the logo for FedEx? Amazon? Cisco? So cool to see the hidden stuff. But I digress.)
The return of our porous defense, not to mention more questionable play-calling on offense, made me queasy. Then we took a couple of gut-punches when we lost two team leaders to injury—Chris Whaley and Johnathan Gray. (And how creepy was it to see JGray’s calf quiver right before he went down? What in the world WAS that? He took a step and we could clearly see what looked like the world’s largest twitch in his leg. Sheesh.)
In the fourth quarter, when the teams kept trading leads, my stomach was giving me fits. Then, as the Horns tied it up to force overtime, I thought my heart would give out before game’s end.
But fate smiled on us in OT. As a wise man once said, “Nobody ever covers the TE on the goal line.” Fortunately for Alex De La Torre, that was true. He was wide open for the game-winner.
So here we are, 6-0 in the Big 12 and finally horning into the Top 25. But really, I have to think we’re more rank than ranked. This game showed us that we’re not that far removed from the BYU and Ole Miss losses. If JGray and Whaley are out, we’ll need to see some of that depth Mack assures us is there. And we have got to see the ou Case and not the Kansas and West Virginia versions.
Still, just as I said last week, we have the capability to beat any of our remaining opponents. (OK, maybe not Baylor. Good grief, that one may get ugly.) But can we? Can our fearless Horns run the table and capture that elusive fourth Big 12 title? Will we summit or plummet?
Tune in next week.
West Virginia 48, Texas 45Oct. 6, 2012 • DKR
In honor of our inaugural Big 12 game versus the Mountaineers, we rolled out the Mountain Dew. (Yes, those bottles rolled all over the place at our tailgate site! That sidewalk ain’t flat, y’all.) While we’ve used State Fair wax cups to spell Texas, this is just the second time we’ve used a soft drink. The first was the Waco-born Dr Pepper for the Baylor game back in 2010, and we lost that one, too. Now that we’re 0-2 with the soda spellings, we may be avoiding this medium in the future.
Making this week’s Spell Texas extra-special: My daughter, Katie, took all the photos Saturday, which just so happened to be her 15th birthday!
Just like the hyper-caffeinated Mountain Dew, West Virginia hit Texas with tons of energy. Considering the ’Neers’ quarterback, Geno Smith, is a Heisman contender, that was no surprise. Our defense hasn’t exactly been a brick wall lately, either. Add to that our lackluster kickoff coverage, and we could’ve been blown out of the stadium.
Instead, the Horns put up a good fight. Give me any one of three plays back, and we win this one. Things didn’t look so great when WV went up by 14 early in the second quarter, but a quick, three-play scoring drive followed by a huge defensive TD gave us a brand-new ballgame. Suddenly, Smith looked more human than Heisman. The tide had turned.
And man, were we feeling it! The 101,851 in the stands, DKR’s largest crowd ever, was jumping—literally! And everyone (well, almost everyone) stayed for the whole she-bang. The close game, the great crowd, the perfect, low 60s football weather: all of it added up to an electric atmosphere.
Too bad it also didn’t add up to a win.
Spell Texas 
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