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Texas Tech football classics: Red Raiders stun Aggies in 2002

By Matthew Conner

NORMAN, OK - NOVEMBER 23: Wide receiver Nehemiah Glover #6 of the Texas Tech University Red Raiders carries the ball during against the University of Oklahoma Sooners during the game at Memorial Stadium on November 23, 2002 in Norman, Oklahoma. The Sooners won 60-15 to advance to the Big 12 Championship. (Photo by Brian Bahr/Getty Images)
NORMAN, OK - NOVEMBER 23: Wide receiver Nehemiah Glover #6 of the Texas Tech University Red Raiders carries the ball during against the University of Oklahoma Sooners during the game at Memorial Stadium on November 23, 2002 in Norman, Oklahoma. The Sooners won 60-15 to advance to the Big 12 Championship. (Photo by Brian Bahr/Getty Images) /
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(Photo by Brian Bahr/Getty Images)
(Photo by Brian Bahr/Getty Images) /

In 2002, the Texas Tech football team pulled off a stunning overtime win at Texas A&M that most Red Rader fans did not get a chance to see.

Seventeen years ago, the Texas Tech football program entered a pivotal season.  After going 14-12 with two bowl losses in the first two seasons of the Mike Leach era, fans were expecting the team to take a step forward in the senior season of quarterback Kliff Kingsbury.

Knowing what we know now about what Leach would achieve at Tech, it is hard to believe that in the first half of his ten-season run in Lubbock, a considerable portion of the fan base was not pleased with his lack of significant progress.  And in 2002, there was a large contingent of fans still upset about the fact that Leach’s predecessor Spike Dykes, a West Texas good ole boy legend, was essentially forced into retirement following the 1999 season.

Against that backdrop, the 2002 Red Raiders began a season that would see them play Ohio State, N.C. State, Ole Miss, and Texas A&M in the first six games of the season.  After being run over by the Buckeyes in Columbus to open the year, Tech won at SMU and took care of Ole Miss at home before falling to N.C. State at the Jones.

Following a 49-0 romp at New Mexico, the Red Raiders traveled to Kyle Field to square off with No. 23 Texas A&M, which was 3-1 on the season.  Adding to the storyline was the fact that this was the first time the teams had met since 2001’s post-game brawl in the stands of Jones Stadium.  Needless to say, tensions between the two fan bases were at an all-time high.

On a brutally hot and humid October Saturday, the Red Raiders managed to pull out a miraculous 48-47 OT win after trailing 35-17 at the start of the 4th quarter.  The Aggies dominated play for the first three quarters before Tech, as it so often seemed to do under Leach, flipped a switch and outscored the home team 24-6 in the final period to force overtime.

In the extra frame, the Aggies scored first but missed the extra point.  The Red Raiders capitalized when Kingsbury hit Ivory McCann on a tunnel screen for a 10-yard TD pass and when Robert Treece nailed the extra point, the Red Raiders stormed Kyle Field to celebrate.

The Aggies had to leave the game wondering how in the world they managed to drop a game in which their QB, Dustin Long, threw for 365 yards and a Big 12 record 7 touchdowns.  But in one of the wildest rivalries college football has ever seen, anything always could and usually did happen.

The 2002 meeting between the Raiders and Aggies is one of the more storied chapters in a book that is filled with legendary moments.  None of us knew it at the time but when Kingsbury led his team to victory in College Station that day, we were in the final decade of that great series as Tech would only travel to Kyle Field four more times before the Aggies jumped to the S.E.C. in 2012.

What is amazing about the 2002 Red Raiders is that Tech managed to go 9-5 on the year despite having to play seven ranked teams, five on the road.   It was a season in which Leach got his first bowl win at Tech, a 55-15 thumping of Clemson in the Tangerine Bowl, and moved his program forward in a significant way for the first time in his tenure.

While the upset of No. 4 Texas in the home finale was the biggest win of the season, the comeback at Kyle Field was the most improbable.  So let’s take a closer look back at the Red Raiders’ unforgettable victory over the Aggies in 2002.

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