By: Dustin Sullivan
Saturday night featured an outstanding game between two of the nation’s top 10 teams. Both the Texas Longhorns and the Red Raiders of Texas Tech came into the contest with undefeated records. By the end of the evening, one team would no longer be perfect…
Coming into the game, many analysts and experts believed that the high-powered Texas Tech offense, led by Quarterback Graham Harrell and Michael Crabtree, would be shut down by the stingy Texas Longhorns’ defense. All of these expert predictions, though, went out the window when Texas Tech scored 39 points, leading to a 6 point victory over the nation’s top team. The way that the game ended was more than entertaining to say the least.
Texas Quarterback Colt McCoy, who struggled throughout the first half of the game, picked apart the Red Raider defense during a late fourth quarter drive. When the drive ended, with a 4-yard TD run by running back Vondrell McGee, Texas found themselves on the upside of a 33-32 lead, clinging to a one point lead. The Longhorns left Harrell 1:32 seconds to conduct a drive that was nothing short of a miracle considering the fact that Texas Tech had only 1 timeout.
Harrell effeciently took what the Longhorn defense gave him and moved his team into field goal range. With just 8 seconds and still a timeout remaining, most teams would center the ball to the middle of the field, take their timeout and kick the last second field goal. That just wouldn’t fit into the script for Head Coach Mike Leach and his high-powered offense. Graham Harrell remained on the field with the offense. When he took the snap and looked downfield, I was confused.
By the end of the play, Harrell had connected on a 28 yard touchdown pass to arguably the nation’s best receiver Michael Crabtree. With just one second remaining on the clock, the student body of the Red Raiders swarmed the field. The team was issued a series of 15-yard penalties that resulted in a kickoff from their own 7 1/2 yard line.
After the kick and a few lateral passes the second that seemed like another hour to the Tech fans had run off the clock and the number one team in the nation had been dethroned. This victory will without a doubt cause a shake-up in the BCS polls and it should be interesting to see where each top team falls this week.
