Fox Sports has been showing the hell out of the 2007 Missouri-Oklahoma game in recent days, and while I was resting from some housework/painting earlier, I finally broke down and watched it again. Like I have in the past when this game was on, I turned it off immediately after That Play. Missouri had just come back from a 23-10 deficit to take a 24-23 lead heading into the fourth quarter, and as Oklahoma was driving to take the lead again, Sam Bradford overthrew his man in the end zone. Either it surprised Pig Brown that it was overthrown, or he lost it in the lights, but the ball hit Pig in both hands, and he dropped it. Within ten plays, the Sooners had locked the game up for good. They would go on to score the go-ahead touchdown, then take an insurmountable lead when Curtis Lofton scooped up a fumbled exchange between Chase Daniel and Jeremy Maclin and took it in for a touchdown. I turned the game off after the near-pick because a) I know what happened after that, and b) I get to playing the same What If game in my head.
For newer readers who maybe weren't around two summers ago, I thought I would once again share a piece I wrote then, called simply, "What If ... Pig Had Caught That Ball?" (SPOILER ALERT: there is no perfect, happy ending.)