Jim Harris: Don't Blink Or You'll Miss It Inside Jerry's Cowboys Stadium

Ryan Mallett, reminded that he had thrown one of his four touchdown passes in the game to fellow sophomore Jarius Wright, joked late Saturday night inside Cowboys Stadium after recalling it with an "oh yeah" that he hadn't seen it, being dumped on his rear just as he let go of the pass.

We suggested he'd probably enjoy seeing a replay of the phenomenal athletic play made by Wright, not only in catching the pass with his stretched fingertips while laid out almost horizontally, but in the way the receiver stayed on his feet long enough to get the ball over the goal line for an Arkansas touchdown and a 30-10 lead over Texas A&M late in the first half in Arlington, Texas.

Later, we wondered why Mallett didn't just adjust his angle from his prone position to look up at that monstrosity of a video board than was hung from the rafters of Jerry Jones' stadium.

You saw a little bit of everything in Arkansas' 47-19 victory over A&M in the resumption of the schools' series that ended when the Razorbacks left the Southwest Conference and moved to the Southeastern Conference.

That move 17 years ago and playing against the likes of Alabama and LSU every year, might be why Arkansas could have such an edge in talent over the Aggies, or why the Razorbacks beat Texas twice fairly convincingly in this decade, losing another by only two points (let's forget that 52-10 Longhorn beatdown last year as a result of coaching transition). In fact, we called on some of that history to argue the point with a co-worker that Arkansas belonged in the SEC and not with the remnants of the SWC in the Big 12. In 1988, while the Hogs were rolling to an 8-0 conference mark, they stopped Jackie Sherrill's Aggies 25-20 in Fayetteville. Because of a September hurricane, A&M had to make up a game two weeks later at home against Alabama, which was the third-place team in the SEC. 'Bama routed those scary Aggies 31-10.

But, back to that video board. Somehow we missed the view everyone else was talking about later as Saturday night turned into Sunday: At one point in the game, a pretty A&M coed in a tanktop had a wardrobe malfunction that briefly found its way onto the humongous video screen. We heard the oohs and ahhs, looked around and wondered why people might be marveling at a Dylan Breeding punt.

Speaking of punts, none appeared to come close to the video board that the Dallas Morning News' Kevin Sherrington on Sunday morning dubbed the "Godzillatron." One may recall NFL punters in the preseason taking aim with their kicks trying (one sucessfully) to hit the bottom of the video board. Truth is, in a game situation there would be little or no reason to try to power a punt straight into the air. Hitting the hanging video board 90 feet over the playing surface would have to be by accident, just like shanking a rugby punt.

And just how did Texas A&M manage to see Arkansas' rugby effort (9 yards once, another blocked) against Alabama and think that would be a good idea to use it against the Hogs? Breeding, the improving Hogs' freshman punter, can relax now knowing his 9-yarder against 'Bama is no longer the worst rugby kick of the year, topped by the 5-yarder A&M managed when the game was changing early Saturday night.

For a while, we were seeing the Arkansas defense of the last three quarters of the Georgia game: opposing receivers either running free with no one on them, or fleet wideouts with 4.4 speed matched up in man-to-man against beefy linebackers with maybe 4.7 speed at best. The video board, and maybe even ESPN2, didn't do justice to the replay on Arkansas' botched coverage when A&M's Ryan Tannehill loped down the middle of the field, only to drop what should have been a certain touchdown pass from Jerrod Jackson. That would have put A&M back up by 10, 17-7, before the end of the first quarter. Instead, A&M soon would face a fourth-down and shank that punt.