Texas Tech football classics: Red Raiders score emotional win in 2010 Alamo Bowl

Two plays that turned this game for Tech

Almost all football games come down to just a handful of crucial plays.  The 2010 Alamo Bowl was no different as two fourth-quarter plays, which occurred on concurrent possessions, proved to be where Tech seized the momentum.

The first came on Sheffield’s fifth play of the evening.  After losing a total of two yards on his previous two snaps, the junior had to convert a critical 3rd-and-12 on his own end of the field with Tech down 31-27 and just 6:10 to play.

Taking the snap, he fired a strike to Lyle Leong for 43 yards to keep the drive going.  It was a fantastic throw down the left sideline as it split the corner and safety and hit Leong in stride allowing him to come down with it and continue to pick up yards.

Don’t underestimate how impressive this play was.  After having seen the field only sparingly over the last month-and-a-half of the season and having his practice time limited because of his foot sprain, he came off the bench cold to make the throw of the game on 4th down.  Clutch throws like that are why “Sticks” will always be a folk hero for Texas Tech football fans.

But on the ensuing drive, the Red Raiders needed a stop.  They got that from corner Franklin Mitchem.

With 50,000 Tech fans going berserk in support of their defense, Mitchem picked off an ill-advised pass from Cousins.  It was an easy play for the corner who just one play prior had hustled across the field from one sideline to the other to make a tackle on a running play that went for just a yard.

But the real heroes of this play were Sharpe and Howard, Tech’s two defensive ends.  As Sharpe, who had 15 sacks that year, came off the edge, he got a hand on Cousins and turned his shoulders a bit and that seemed to throw off the QB’s timing.  Meanwhile, Howard was applying pressure from the other side preventing Cousins from having any extra time after Sharpe’s fly-by.

The result was a floated pass that Cousins tried unsuccessfully to fit into a window between Mitchem and the safety.  It was a similar type of throw to the one that Sheffield had completed on the critical 3rd down the previous possession.  But the difference was that Cousins didn’t have a clean pocket and that proved to be what turned the game in Tech’s favor for good.