Texas Tech football: The strangest endings in Red Raider history

Tech fans storm the field three times in 2008 win over UT

Of course, eleven years ago this week was the high point of Texas Tech football when the Red Raiders beat No. 1 Texas 39-33 in a showdown of top-10 teams in Lubbock.  The final seven seconds of that game were as wild as any we’ve seen in college football since perhaps “The Play” in 1982.

That’s because this was as close as we’ve come to seeing the fans on the field in a live-ball situation since that day in Northern California three decades earlier.  It’s certainly the only time we’ve seen the crowd storm the field three times in one night and the only time I can remember a team kicking off from its own 7-yard-line.

You already know about the Michael Crabtree 28-yard TD catch with one second left on the clock.  His grab along the sidelines and the ensuing twist away from the defensive back has been replayed more times in Lubbock than the Zapruder film.

But it’s what happened between that moment and the final whistle that took this game from great to unforgettable.  When Crabtree scored, the students stormed the field assuming that time had expired.  However, there was still time one second on the clock meaning Tech was penalized 15 yards on the ensuing kickoff.

OF course, the students didn’t go back to their seats, they just simply stood on the side of the field in the south end zone where they looked like an angry mob ready to storm the Bastille.  Inebriated by a day of preparation for the prime time game and foaming at the mouth to celebrate the win over UT, the students rushed the field again after the Red Raider extra-point kick.

The problem is that time does not elapse on an extra point so the game wasn’t over and Tech was again penalized 15 yards.  That led to the comical scene of the front wave of the mob realizing the game was still ongoing and turning around to run back to the sidelines where there was even less room for the hoard to gather given that those that didn’t storm the field on the first deployment had finally been able to reach the playing surface.

With two penalties enforced, Tech had to kick off from its own seven-yard-line in what had to be the strangest looking kickoff in the history of football.

With thousands of students standing along the back of the endzone crammed 10-deep right up to the wall of the stands with only a row of state troopers and stadium event staff separating them from the field, the Red Raider kickoff team lined up in the middle of the Red Raider lettering in the endzone prior to the game’s last play.

Once Tech secured the win for good, the third and final field storming took place and chaos as we’d never seen in Lubbock ensued.  It was the most beautiful, wacky, and perfect ending for the most important and memorable game in the history of Red Raider football.

Had Crabtree’s catch not incited such pandemonium in the stadium, this would be just another fantastic finish in the history of a sport filled with them.  But because of the triple-field-storm, this game took on legendary status in the annals of college sports.