Thank God Texas’ School Shooter Was As Ineffective As Their Football Team, By Randy Moore, Husker Fan

Story by Christina Mayer 

| Published Oct 5, 2010

As a former UNL student, I find the string of university shootings over the last few years highly disturbing. Turning on the news to find that another campus is locked down by a crazy person with a gun tends to make me think of how lucky I am, in that I have never had to experience such terror. The latest shooting scare, on Sept. 28 at the University of Texas-Austin, is no different. I just want to take a moment to give thanks for the lack of student fatalities, and to celebrate the fact that shooter Colton Cooley’s aim is apparently just as bad as Garrett Gilbert’s.

Really, this Cooley fellow was pretty useless as a shooter. Apparently he was running around the UT campus with an AK-47 which, last I heard, has some button on the side that essentially lets the bullets go through walls to find targets. Unless I’m thinking of that awful Angelina Jolie movie where they can make bullets go around corners – but whatever. According to every Texas fan ever, all of their quarterbacks have essentially the same button installed somewhere under their playbook armbands. But Texas fans are morons. Not like Nebraska fans, the classiest in the NCAA, who love our players but have realistic expectations, regardless of how many times they fumble the snap on important plays during big games. Not that I’m bitter. Cody.

But I digress. Initial reports from witnesses have indicated that Cooley wasn’t actually attempting to aim at or pursue any of the numerous students he encountered on his way to the library, where he eventually shot himself. He appeared to be intentionally aiming for the ground, which begs explanation as to why Mac Brown bothers putting Gilbert on the field when there’s so many open receivers to – no, wait. We’re talking about Cooley. Sorry. Cooley wasn’t trying to hit anyone, which makes me wonder why the guy brought an automatic weapon onto a packed campus in the first place. It just doesn’t make a lot of sense.

Even as a Husker, I truly do feel for the students at UT. I’m fairly conservative, but guns have always terrified me at least as much as Sarah Palin does. And if Texas students are anything like me, having the memory of an armed gunman on their campus made for a fairly sober atmosphere in the lead up to the Red River Shootout with Oklahoma. Speaking of which, does that name strike anyone else as being highly awkward now? Surely I’m not alone in this. But frankly, I’m surprised that the hicks who drive that OU chuck wagon around at home games didn’t get ideas. Who knows what they could have been hiding inside that thing? When it comes to concealed weaponry, Bevo simply cannot compare to a big empty wagon. Even if you convinced him to swallow your blunderbuss, or whatever the weapon of choice is in Texas these days, I’m not sure how you would get it back out again… or if you would even want to. Thankfully, the Sooners aren’t very creative.

Regardless of how the Red River Shootout ended, the Longhorns will – ugh, no. That makes me uncomfortable to even say. Take two. Regardless of how the Oklahoma-Texas rival game ended, the Longhorns will be coming up to Lincoln soon looking for competition. I thoroughly enjoyed seeing them pull another “lose to UCLA because it sounds FUN!” in that last-minute turnover, but regardless, I think Texas made the point that they can recover from, and be better than, anything a motivationally-challenged shooter might try. And I think I can predict, with absolutely no bias, of course, that Texas will find more than they bargained for in Memorial Stadium. So come Oct. 16, Husker nation, we should absolutely answer the call to war with the Longhorns. There’s no extra second this time. Wear red. Be loud. And let’s silence some Texas fans in a way that doesn’t involve the death of more than their Big XII Title dreams.