The 2009 Dr Pepper Big 12 Championship Game was held on December 5, 2009 at

Cowboys Stadium AT&T Stadium, formerly Cowboys Stadium, is a retractable-roof stadium in Arlington, Texas, United States. It serves as the home of the Dallas Cowboys of the National Football League (NFL), and was completed on May 27, 2009. It is also the hom ...

Arlington, Texas Arlington is a city in the U.S. state of Texas, located in Tarrant County. It forms part of the Mid-Cities region of the Dallas–Fort Worth–Arlington metropolitan statistical area, and is a principal city of the metropolis and region. ...

. The divisional winners from the

Big 12 Conference The Big 12 Conference is a college athletic conference headquartered in Irving, Texas, USA. It consists of ten full-member universities. It is a member of Division I of the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) for all sports. Its ...

squared off in the 14th edition of the game. The

Texas Longhorns The Texas Longhorns are the athletic teams representing the University of Texas at Austin. The teams are sometimes referred to as the Horns and take their name from Longhorn cattle that were an important part of the development of Texas, and a ...

represented the South Division and the

Nebraska Cornhuskers The Nebraska Cornhuskers (often abbreviated to Huskers) are the intercollegiate athletic teams that represent the University of Nebraska–Lincoln. The university is a member of the Big Ten Conference, and the Cornhuskers compete in NCAA Divis ...

represented the North. Texas won 13–12 on a last second

field goal A field goal (FG) is a means of scoring in gridiron football. To score a field goal, the team in possession of the ball must place kick, or drop kick, the ball through the goal, i.e., between the uprights and over the crossbar. The entire ba ...

placekicker Placekicker, or simply kicker (PK or K), is the player in gridiron football who is responsible for the kicking duties of field goals and extra points. In many cases, the placekicker also serves as the team's kickoff specialist or punter. Spe ...

Hunter Lawrence Hunter Lawrence (born June 28, 1988) is a former American football placekicker. Lawrence tried out for the job of placekicker for the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. He played college football at the University of Texas at Austin. High school career Lawren ...

. On the play immediately prior to Lawrence's field goal, as the game clock ticked down Texas quarterback

Colt McCoy Daniel "Colt" McCoy (born September 5, 1986) is an American football quarterback for the Arizona Cardinals of the National Football League (NFL). He played college football at Texas Longhorns football, Texas, where he won several awards and honor ...

rolled far to the right, with Nebraska's

Ndamukong Suh Ndamukong Ngwa Suh ( , born January 6, 1987) is an American football defensive tackle for the Philadelphia Eagles of the National Football League (NFL). He played college football at Nebraska, where he earned All-American honors, and was drafte ...

in hot pursuit, and threw a pass well downfield and out of bounds. The game clock ran out, which would have ended the game, with Nebraska appearing to win 12–10. However, pursuant to Rule 12-3-6, the video replay official determined that an "egregious", and therefore reviewable, error concerning the game clock had occurred and ordered the errantly elapsed one second be returned to the clock. The ESPN/ABC video feed showed that McCoy's pass hit a stadium railing out of bounds with :01 left, allowing Texas to kick the winning field goal to advance to the BCS title game. This controversy has led to the game being called by some followers as One Second Left. After the game, Nebraska coach

Bo Pelini Mark Anthony "Bo" Pelini (born December 13, 1967) is a former American football coach and former player. He was most recently the defensive coordinator for the Louisiana State University Tigers football team. He is the younger brother of forme ...

said that the 1 second rule was part of a BCS conspiracy. The game was the third championship tilt between the Cornhuskers and Longhorns. Unranked Texas upset #3 Nebraska 37–27 in

1996 File:1996 Events Collage.png, From left, clockwise: A Centennial Olympic Park bombing, bomb explodes at Centennial Olympic Park in Atlanta, set off by a radical Anti-abortion violence, anti-abortionist; The center fuel tank explodes on TWA Flight 8 ...

St. Louis, Missouri St. Louis () is the second-largest city in Missouri, United States. It sits near the confluence of the Mississippi River, Mississippi and the Missouri Rivers. In 2020, the city proper had a population of 301,578, while the Greater St. Louis, ...

, while #2 Nebraska beat #12 Texas 22–6 in 1999 in

San Antonio, Texas ("Cradle of Freedom") , image_map = , mapsize = 220px , map_caption = Interactive map of San Antonio , subdivision_type = Country , subdivision_name = United States , subdivision_type1= State , subdivision_name1 = Texas , subdivision_t ...

. Texas is now 3–2 in the conference title games; Nebraska fell to 2–3. Texas went to second in Big 12 Championship titles to Oklahoma, who owned 14 conference titles at the time. As of , it is the last conference title won by Texas. Per Big 12 policy, Nebraska was declared the home team because the game took place in a home state of four Big 12 South teams. Designated "home" teams are 9–5 in

Big 12 Championship Game The Big 12 Championship Game is a college football game held by the Big 12 Conference between the best and the second-best Big 12 team. The game was played each year since the conference's formation in 1996 until 2010 and returned during the 20 ...

s. The South Division had won six years in a row and were 10–4 overall.

Selection process

The

matched up the winner of the ''North'' and ''South'' divisions of the

. The game was first played in

,Historical note 2
when the conference was assembled to include all of the teams from the

Big Eight Conference The Big Eight Conference was a National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA)-affiliated Division I-A college athletic association that sponsored football. It was formed in January 1907 as the Missouri Valley Intercollegiate Athletic Associatio ...

as well as four teams that had formerly been members of the

Southwest Conference The Southwest Conference (SWC) was an NCAA Division I college athletic conference in the United States that existed from 1914 to 1996. Composed primarily of schools from Texas, at various times the conference included schools from Oklahoma an ...

. The championship game was modeled on the SEC format, which was the first conference in college football to have a conference championship game.

References

{{College Football on ABC Big 12 Championship Game

Big 12 Championship The Big 12 Conference sponsors championships in 23 sports, 10 men's and 13 women's. The first conference championship awarded was the 1996 softball postseason tournament championship, which was won by Oklahoma. From 2011 through 2016, the foot ...

Nebraska Cornhuskers football games Texas Longhorns football games

American football in the Dallas–Fort Worth metroplex College football controversies