In 2005, the Texas Tech football program pulled out one of its most improbable wins in program history thanks to a gift from Nebraska in the final minutes.
When the Texas Tech football team squared off with Nebraska in the back half of the 2000s, the two programs were on vastly different trajectories. With the Mike Leach “Air Raid” operating at its peak, the Red Raiders were ascending the college football ladder while the Cornhuskers were in the midst of a free-fall that no one expected and from which they have yet to recover.
From the time the teams first met in the 1976 Bluebonnet Bowl until 2001, Nebraska had never lost to Texas Tech going 7-0 with the last four of those coming in Big 12 play. But that all changed in a huge way on a fall night in West Texas back in 2004.
That night, Sonny Cumbie and Tech handed Nebraska its worst loss in school history, 70-10 as the Red Raiders ran off 49-consecutive points to end the game. It was the first time Tech had defeated the Cornhuskers and it signaled a turning point in the Leach era as the Red Raiders took a huge step towards becoming one of the top programs in the conference.
A year later, Tech traveled to Lincoln, Nebraska for the Cornhuskers’ homecoming game. Entering the contest, NU had gone 36-0 all-time on homecoming but after one of the wildest Big 12 games of the 2000s, that streak was put to bed.
Both teams were 4-0 as kickoff arrived with Tech making their first road trip of the season. The unranked Huskers were a slight underdog to the No. 13 Red Raiders and in the first quarter-and-a-half, it looked as if Tech would run away with the game.
Finding the endzone on three of its first four drives, Tech jumped out to a 21-0 lead on an NU defense that had given up an average of just nine points per game to that point in the season. Cody Hodges hit Taurean Henderson for the game’s opening score and Joel Filani for the next two touchdowns as the Red Raider offense looked unstoppable early.
But then, Nebraska made a subtle change that turned the course of the game. The Huskers began to shift their defensive line right before the snap to confuse Tech’s massive offensive line and try to exploit the huge splits that Leach had between each lineman.
The strategy worked to the tune of seven total sacks, six coming in the second half as the Tech offense bogged down. After starting the game 21-26 for 221 yards and three touchdowns in the first half, Hodges was held to just 6-10 passing for 66 yards and no scores until the final drive of the game.
That included a third quarter in which Tech picked up only two first downs and scored just six points despite forcing NU turnovers inside the 20 on back-to-back possessions. Such periods of sluggishness were prevalent throughout the Leach years as it seemed like his offenses would often struggle to regain their rhythm after momentum swung in the opponent’s favor.
As the Tech offense faltered, Nebraska quarterback Zac Taylor got hot and led his team to a 31-27 lead with just over five minutes to play. After the Red Raiders stormed out to their 21-point lead, the Cornhuskers went on a 31-6 run from the middle of the second quarter until the last five minutes of the game.
But all anyone remembers from this game is that final Red Raider drive. That’s because it included one of the most improbable and quite frankly, most fortuitous plays in Red Raider history.
With 1:51 to play and Tech at the Nebraska 12-yard-line, Hodges was intercepted by NU defensive lineman Le Kevin Smith who came down with a deflected ball. But rather than simply going to the ground to secure the win, the senior tried to run with the ball only to have it stripped allowing Danny Amendola to pounce on it and keep Tech alive.
For plays later, Hodges and Filani connected for the game-winning TD with just 0:12 to play giving Tech a 34-31 win. It was the second in a streak of four-straight wins over Nebraska by the Red Raiders, making them the first team to ever have that long of a winning streak against the Huskers, one of college football’s most historic programs.
Tech ended that season 9-3 overall including a Cotton Bowl Birth. Meanwhile, Nebraska managed to go 8-4 in the second year of the forgettable Bill Callahan era meaning that this game was what separated these two teams in the standings.
There were several times when a Leach team seemed to pull out a victory in rather improbable fashion. But this game was different because it was the rare occasion when a bone-headed play by the other team led directly to a Red Raider win rather than Tech making its own fortune. As the old cliche says, sometimes it is truly better to be lucky than good and that’s what Tech was 14 years ago in Lincoln.