Texas Tech football classics: “Sticks”, defense humble Nebraska in 2009

Daniel Howard’s TD perfectly summarized this game

In the second quarter, with Tech leading 7-0, the play of the game took place and it was a perfect microcosm of the afternoon.

With Tech up 7-0, the Huskers attempted a backward pass from Lee to running back Niles Paul who dropped the ball.  But having a moment of brain fog, Paul would not realize that the ball was live and he let it bounce around until Daniel Howard would scoop it up and scamper 82 yards for a TD.

This play was truly the back-breaker for Nebraska.  At the time, the Huskers had driven to the Tech 18 on what was one of their best drives of the day.  What’s more, by turning the ball over, Nebraska would spoil a special teams play that saw Paul return a poor Tech punt from the Tech 46 to the 33.

After this play, it seemed as if Nebraska had no life.  And there was certainly no emotion in the crowd as over 80,000 Huskers sat in stunned disbelief.

What’s more, the lingering effects were easy to see.  Nebraska would muster just eight total yards on their next two drives allowing Tech to jump out to a 24-3 halftime lead.

Plays such as this were indicative of the Leach era.  Often thriving in the role of the underdog, the Texas Tech Mike Leach teams often made their own luck by taking advantage of catastrophic mistakes from the other team.

That was the case in the 2005 game in Lincoln when Nebraska fumbled the late INT back to Tech allowing the Red Raiders to win in the closing seconds and it was the case again in Lincoln in 2007.  That’s one way Tech managed to be one of the toughest teams to play against in the nation during that era.