Texas Tech football classics: Red Raiders hold off Nebraska in 2008

Nebraska controlled the pace of play to nearly pull the upset

Taking a page from its glorious past, Nebraska played an old-school type of game to keep the Red Raider offense in check.   Dominating the line of scrimmage when they had the ball, NU held the ball for 24:12 to Tech’s 12:28 and ran 80 plays to Tech’s 48.

As a result, the Huskers wore down the Tech defense and by the end of the fourth quarter, defensive coordinator Ruffin McNeil was forced to expend timeouts simply to give his defense a chance to catch its wind.

Relying on a game plan straight out of the 1990s, NU ran the ball to set up play-action and bootleg passes that were able to pick up yards in small enough chunks to burn the clock.  For the game, the Huskers outgained Tech 471 yards to 421 but averaged just 5.8 yards per play to Tech’s 8.7.

It wasn’t that Tech’s offense struggled.  The Red Raiders scored on five of their seven drives in regulation (not counting the one came at the end regulation when Tech got the ball with just seconds to play).  The problem was that the defense couldn’t get off the field.

NU was 7-12 on third down and 1-2 on fourth.  They executed their game plan to perfection and it was the only way they had any chance of keeping the game close.

In the end though, the beleaguered Red Raider defense came up with one big stop.  Keep in mind that Tech had the ball for the last three plays of regulation and to begin the OT thus giving McNeil’s defense just long enough to rest up for one more stand.  Thankfully, Wall made the play and Tech survived because NU had them on the ropes and the longer this game would have gone into OT, the better the odds would have been of an upset.