Texas Tech Football: Top 10 Plays of 2015
The 2015 Texas Tech football season was a roller coaster full of ups and downs and twists and turns that eventually stopped on a 7-6 record for the Red Raiders. It was a season that saw Texas Tech beat Texas for the first time in seven years and Kansas State for the first time in six. In addition, Texas Tech improved by three wins from 2014 and returned to post season play.
There were over 2,100 plays run from scrimmage in Texas Tech’s 13 games and most of them have already been lost in the breeze that is the human memory. But some plays will be forever chiseled into our minds as the plays that made 2015 memorable.
The following are the top 10 plays of the 2015 Texas Tech football season.
10. Jah’Shawn Johnson INT and touchdown vs. Kansas
In the middle of October, Texas Tech found itself on the brink of disaster. Facing a Kansas Jayhawks team that would go winless in 2015, Kliff Kingsbury’s team played its worst game of the season.
All afternoon the offense was out of sync. Against the worst team in the conference, missed opportunities by the Red Raiders allowed the home team to stay in the game.
In the 4th quarter, Texas Tech was in danger of blowing a 20-0 halftime lead. Kansas had the ball with 4:20 to play trailing only 23-20. On 3rd-and-6 from its own 11, Kansas asked freshman quarterback Ryan Willis to make a play with his arm.
Fortunately for Texas Tech, Willis stared down his receiver running down the near sideline allowing Red Raider safety Jah’Shawn Johnson to step in front of the pass for the easy interception. Johnson would return the pick 29 yards for a touchdown to put Texas Tech up 30-20, the score by which it would slip out of Lawrence with a victory.
Beating Kansas is nothing to be proud of. But losing to Kansas would have been something to be utterly ashamed of.
In fact, “ashamed” is one of many negative adjectives Kingsbury used to describe the way his team played on the day. Johnson’s pick came one play after Texas Tech failed to recover a fumble in the Kansas end zone when two Red Raiders knocked each other off the ball.
Johnson was one of the few Red Raiders to make a play on the day and his was the play that finally put the Jayhawks’ upset bid to bed.
Next: Grant touchdown pass