The sunburn that remains on my arms this Monday evening reminds me that it was hot Saturday afternoon. Real hot. The weather report said the high was in the mid-90’s, but it felt like it was at least ten degrees hotter than that.

And, the official attendance of 101,144 is a bit confusing. There were certainly never that many in the stands at any one time. It’s possible that several tens of thousands of people were hiding in the shade under the stands, however.

And a huge percentage of the people who were there left at the half. I can’t say I completely blame them. For a while, I wasn’t sure I would make it all the way to The Eyes of Texas. Fortunately, the Wife shamed me into manning up.

An afternoon game with nothing but sunshine meant that even a slow digicam could get sharp action photos at the UTEP Miners versus Texas Longhorns game on September 26, 2009.

The Texas Longhorns had a quick start to the game Saturday against the UTEP Miners, recovering a fumble and driving down to the three yard line. Tre’ Newton took it from there.

The Texas Longhorns kickoff to the UTEP Miners to start the game on Saturday, September 26, 2009. Did I mention it was hot?

It was a brutally hot afternoon at Darrell K. Royal-Texas Memorial Stadium, with lots of empty seats (yet somehow more than 101K in attendance). Those of us there did our best to cheer the Longhorns as they took the field to play the UTEP Miners.

Heading into the game between the Texas Tech Red Raiders and the Texas Longhorns, if you had told me that Tech would only score twenty-four points, I would have confidently predicted a win by three or four touchdowns. As it happened, the Texas defense held Tech to three touchdowns and a field goal, but Texas only won by ten points, in a game that was actually much closer than the final score indicated.

I’ve waited a few days to write about the the game as I wanted to have some time to think about it. It was an ugly win, but I’ll take an ugly win over a pretty loss on any day of the week.

As always, the Wife and I were in Section 127 (upper deck eastside at about the 28 yard line). As usual, I brought a camera with me to take some pictures.

We started at the north gate to see the coaches and players walk in.

Here’s the Longhorn Band’s halftime show during the Texas Tech versus Texas game on September 19, 2009.

Saturday evening, September 19, 2009, Darrell K Royal-Texas Memorial Stadium hosted the largest crowd ever to attend a game in the state of Texas (101,297 official attendance). I shot this video of the opening kickoff to capture the environment.

Many Texas Longhorn fans still see the play in their nightmares. Texas Tech quarterback Graham Harrell throws the ball to Michael Crabtree, who tosses off a tackle from Earl Thomas and outruns Curtis Brown to the endzone to put the Red Raiders ahead with only a second remaining in the game.

It doesn’t help that one can’t watch anything involving college football without seeing the play every two or three minutes.

Tonight, after ten long months of waiting, Texas and Texas Tech finally meet again on the football field. Only this time, it’s Darrell K Royal-Texas Memorial Stadium, in front of a record Texas crown that should approach 102,000.