One thing that has been said about the play of Alabama from national media was that they were usually mistake prone and that Texas got lucky in many respects, but especially with the drops by the Bama receivers. While it is true that that there were about 3 drops drops by the receivers of Bama, I think Texas had just as many between a couple from Jordan, one by Worthy, not to mention the wiff tackle on the last Bama drive or failure of Sark to call time out and reset things for the end of half field goal or the int drop bay Jamison. I think the timing of all of these drops/plays was critical and all could have reasonably resulted in gain or loss of points if not directly and I think Texas had more of those than Alabama.
While Alabama also had more penalties, I can not think of a single one where I thought the call was questionable. Even the Bama blindside hit penalty was previously offset by an even less aggregeous blindside Texas block. Likewise, I think all penalties called on Texas had merit. In fact, I think the only truly stupid penalties that were mental errors by Bama were the above block and the flagged hit after the play on the TE. All the others had a forced error aspect (off sides) or a a definite purpose such as intentional injury or play mitigation. Alabama knew what they were doing and it was intentional and purposeful. It was not an undisciplined team early in the season out of its element or a team caught off guard by non SEC officials.
I can only recall one penalty that could have been called on Texas (that wasn't) and I didn't see it, but Klatt mentioned some possible defensive holding over the middle of the field on a a play in the first half. Counter that with:
1. Of course, I think the non safety call was nonsense, but that has been discussed to death.
2. The missed face mask call on Robinson, I found to be the equally bad. I would have preferred that the Bama player not done it at all. If that happens, I think Robinson gets at least two more yds and possibly the first down. The fact that the face mask was instrumental in reducing the yardage on the play has not really been discussed much. That is a call that must be made, not only because it is a penalty but because it had a huge bearing on the play and the rest of the game.
Additionally, the non call messed up what could have been an epic Texas victory or an even more epic Bama comeback.
3. PI in the endzone non call.
I'm going to call offensive holding a wash, since I don't thin a single one was called on either team the whole game.
In the end I think the narrative should be that Alabama was lucky that Texas committed more unforced errors, got a huge advantage (at least 3 to 1)in critical obvious non calls, and of course altered the game on a dirty purposeful hit on our starting qb....again.