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Regarding horns down, we don't have to keep doing this

Joe Cookby:Joe Cook•07/16/24•

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Horns Down
Matthew Emmons-USA TODAY Sports

Maybe Mike Davis never should have celebrated that touchdown in Lubbock.

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That’s what started this whole ‘horns down’ thing anyway. It wasn’t a first horns down as the horns have been thrown down in Dallas and elsewhere for decades. Rather, it was Davis ‘holstering’ guns after a 75-yard touchdown reception at Texas Tech in 2012. That was flagged, and former head coach Mack Brown made it clear in his ensuing weekly press conference he didn’t like the hypocrisy of one hand signal being flagged and another being permitted. Plus, Brown thought horns down was disrespectful.

It is. It’s meant to be.

That doesn’t make it a big deal, and we should stop treating it like it is one.

I can understand why the question was asked, as Texas is in a new conference after all. And it was asked on Tuesday to SEC coordinator of officials John McDaid on SEC Network.

Here was his response…

“We’re going to evaluate it in context. Is it taunting an opponent? Is it making a travesty of the game? A travesty of the game is something that offends us, right? Kick it out of the football stadium, go put in a shopping mall or out in a parking lot somewhere. Well, does it offend someone? Then it’s probably making a travesty of the game.”

He’d continue…

“If a player is just doing it to celebrate with his teammates, maybe going back up the sideline after a touchdown or interception, I don’t necessarily have that as a travesty. I don’t have that directed at his opponent. So it’s contextual.”

That is the same as it’s always been, and yet it continues to be a story propagated by certain members of the media. That propagation starts the vicious cycle all over. Opposing fans use it as a way to suggest Texas is soft or whiny or full of complainers. Texas fans, as they always do, typically brush it off as a signal that’s one part disrespect and another part endearment. Fans don’t boo nobodies, after all.

And then the fans of the Longhorns move on.

We don’t have to keep doing this, the whole bringing up a silly storyline that brings silly answers and pushes a silly narrative thing.

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But some people choose to, even knowing the answer won’t change.

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