Carlos Francis drops pass at A&M in 2000
Another moment when Tech fans threw their remote controls across the room came in 2000 when Texas Tech wide receiver Carlos Francis dropped a sure-fire TD pass in the 4th quarter of a 33-15 loss to Texas A&M in College Station. Though there have been too many legendary Texas Tech football moments against the Aggies to count, this is one that we all remember for dubious reasons. (You can watch the entire game here and in order to see the Francis play, skip to the 2:39:55 mark)
In Mike Leach’s first season, his team had battled back from a 19-7 deficit to trail just 19-15 and was threatening to take the lead after recovering a fumbled A&M kickoff return. But Tech was pushed to a 4th-and-1 at the A&M 26 with 11:35 to go in the game.
Leach decided to go for it and went against convention by calling a passing play. Sophomore QB Kliff Kingsbury was hit almost the moment he finished his dropback, an odd note being as he didn’t take this crucial snap from the shotgun, but he was able to get the ball away in Francis’s direction.
The pass could not have been any more perfect as it hit Francis between the 8 and the 2 on his jersey. The true freshman had beaten his man to the inside and would have walked into the endzone as the ball hit him in stride at the goal line.
But his mistake was that he didn’t try to catch the ball with his hands. Instead, he tried to cradle it into his body and that allowed it to take an unexpected bounce off of his torso.
That play changed the course of this game as the Red Raiders would not score again and the Aggies would score twice in the final quarter, including on the ensuing possession to make the final score more lopsided than the game actually proved to be.
All the momentum at that point was on Tech’s side and a TD would have sent the home team reeling. There’s no guarantee that the Red Raiders would have won had Francis made the play but they would have been in a great position.
Francis made plenty of plays in his career as he caught 261 passes for 3,031 yards and 21 TDs in his four years. But on this occasion, he ripped our hearts out by preventing us an opportunity to see our team take down A&M at Kyle Field.