Texas Vs. Texas Tech, the classics

The Five Best Big 12 games between the Longhorns/Red Raiders (and a fight about hats)

A recent report stated that Texas and Texas Tech will continue their annual matchup after the Longhorns bolt for the SEC. Clearly, politicians with a red and black shade got involved to guarantee the game continues, but it was the necessary move on the Longhorns part as well. On the one hand, it’s probably the “right” thing to do. On the other, if the winds of fury and cow manure aren’t blowing as strongly from Lubbock to Austin, it makes the Longhorns exit from the Big 12 a little bit easier. When I saw the news that the game would continue, I immediately posted on Inside Texas: “My parents’ tradition of their annual fight around this game can continue! Someone always sleeps in the other room.”

Brian Davis @BDavisAAS

Texas has agreed in principal to play Texas Tech in an annual non-conference football game once UT leaves for the SEC, Tech AD Kirby Hocutt tells @AJ_DonWilliams. "We've spoken about a 20- to 25-year commitment."

To the masses, Texas and Texas Tech isn’t a rivalry on par with Texas/OU or Texas and the fake military school to the East. But, growing up at my house, it was the center of the sports universe. The first college football memory I have is from the 1995 game. I don’t remember much except that it was bone chillingly cold in Austin and that the Longhorns won big (48-7). I think of my parents’ house and I can picture one of those cheesy “House Divided” flags with the Longhorn on one side and the Double T on the other. My entire Dad’s side of the family went to Tech, my Mom was the lone Longhorn in the family. I grew up in Austin, but had no choice – I wore the scarlet and black. I did always watch the Longhorns with Mom and I had a complicated relationship with Texas, to put it nicely.

Even so, I said to a friend in high school that “if I can get into Texas, I’m going there.” The friend responded with “won’t your dad kill you?” So, I went to Tech first, then transferred to Texas. More on that in a bit. The only times I remember my parents fighting were when the Longhorns and Red Raiders faced off. They were always pretty cordial around blowouts, usually my Dad accepted that the Matadors didn’t have “it” on that particular day. Then, there are the legendary close games between the two and on those nights, I can still hear tires screeching out of the driveway and an introduction to curse words. My parents never watched the game in the same room. In fact, one of the last times they watched it together became a legendary fight with aftershocks still going today. The fallout from it almost disrupted their wedding. Here’s the story in each of their words. Keep in mind, I haven’t fact checked or edited for accuracy. I’m just letting their memories of the event give you an idea of what I’ve dealt with the past 31 years.

Dad: In 1986, at the end of the football season, David McWilliams, the Tech coach, left for his alma mater, UT. It was a big year! I asked your mother, a Longhorn, to marry me.  Two nights before the wedding, we watched UT play A&M. I was angry with UT for stealing our coach, so I wanted The Aggies to win. My about to be bride would not kiss me goodnight when she left.

We had a great wedding and early marriage until Tech’s bowl game weeks later. McWilliams did not coach the game. Some of his assistants stayed for the game, but they wore orange UT caps on the Tech sideline! We haven’t argued much in 34 years. Those two nights we did.

Spike Dykes, who wore a Tech cap became our coach.

Mom: David McWilliams got hired to come back to UT after being head coach at Tech only one year. Tech was in a bowl game that year, and McWilliams was staying to coach the bowl game. He wore a white cap with a big Double T on it.  The Double T was RED, RED, RED, but never ever in 50 million years will anyone ever convince Dad. He’s convinced McWilliams wore a burnt orange cap to that stupid game, and he was incensed.

The T was red. No one is either that stupid or that insensitive that they would wear another team’s logo to a freaking bowl game! For one thing, the players would’ve never stood for it and would’ve ripped it off his head. Plus, McWilliams was a decent guy and cared about his players and wouldn’t have flaunted leaving like that.

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Did David McWilliams coach the bowl game? I’ve never actually looked it up. All I know is that you still don’t want to get them started on what color hats the Tech coaches were wearing on the sideline of the Independence Bowl.

There are plenty of unmemorable games between Texas and Texas Tech. Oftentimes, it’s the game Texas plays their best of the season. Because of the dramatic games, it seems like Tech has won more than they have, but the Red Raiders are just 6-19 in the Big 12 era. Mack Brown used to say that Texas oftentimes found themselves against Tech and you’d find him throwing up in a corner if he ever lost to them. Vince Young and Colt McCoy had their true coming out parties against Tech in 2004 and 2007, respectively. The 2005 matchup was a top 10 showdown in Austin where the Longhorns rolled.

When this game is exciting, it’s a classic. It’s put my older sister into labor with my nephew, classic (he’s a freshman at Tech now, they should have named him Welker). The game is at its best when it has stakes, which is why games like 2015 and 2020 don’t make the cut. They were close and high scoring, but the teams were terrible and the game ended up meaning nothing. The hallmarks of the great games in this series are that they’re pretty much always in November, in Lubbock and the best players are always the heroes. There are very rarely unlikely heroes in this rivalry like there are in others. It’s always the household names who step up. In honor of the game this weekend and Mom and Dad’s annual fight, here are the five best Texas/Texas Tech showdowns of my lifetime.

Honorable Mention – 2018: Texas 41 Texas Tech 34 (Lubbock)

Sam Ehlinger and Lil’Jordan Humphrey do something that would make Graham Harrell and Michael Crabtree proud, yet angry.

5) 1998: Texas Tech 42 Texas 35: Ricky Williams vs Ricky Williams, Spike vs Mack

This Spike Dykes led victory in Lubbock spoiled Mack Brown’s first season and kept the Longhorns out of the Big 12 Championship game. Texas would beat the Aggies in Austin the next week, capping off Ricky Williams’ Heisman Trophy campaign and securing his NCAA career rushing yards record, but the Aggies would go onto play for their only conference championship I’ll see in my lifetime. Not many folks remember Tech had their own Ricky Williams at the same time Texas had “The” Ricky Williams. Tech’s Ricky was from Duncanville and was undersized at 5’7, but was lightning quick, a great receiver out of the backfield and ended up having a strong cup of coffee for the Colts.

On that night, the “other” Ricky even outrushed The Ricky. Texas’ wide receiver Wayne McGarity had four touchdowns and 174 yards, the best game of his injury plagued career, but his heroics were thwarted by a game winning Tech drive in the last minute. When you watch the game now, the offense looks like you have to blow dust off of it. Then it gets to the fourth quarter and the two teams combine for 36 points and it’s like the game is foretelling of the High Plains’ offense that would change the Big 12 just a few years later.

The MVP of the rewatch: Sharon Dykes, who gets a lot of screen time and seems to be willing the Red Raiders to victory from the sidelines.

4) 2006: Texas 35 Texas Tech 31 (Lubbock)

In retrospect, Colt McCoy is nearly a flawless figure, the quintessential mistake free quarterback. Nowadays, he’s a legend after the legend in Austin. His number hangs on DKR with Earl, Ricky, Vince and Nobis. Think back to 2006 and then you remember that McCoy was a pretty poorly ranked recruit who was viewed as a sad reminder that Mack Brown didn’t bring home Ryan Perriloux. In McCoy’s redshirt freshman year, he wasn’t guaranteed the job over highly rated true freshman Jevan Snead. McCoy’s maturity and poise allowed him to hang onto the job, but on a late October night in Lubbock, it was all falling apart. The Red Raiders jumped out to a 21-0 lead behind Graham Harrell and Jarrett Hicks. McCoy threw a pick six and benches were being ripped up and crowd surfed at Jones Stadium, as they often are. It was a tortilla tossin’ fiesta in Lubbock. Mack Brown stuck with McCoy and the Longhorns went into the locker room at halftime down 31-21. Then, the Red Raiders didn’t score in the second half. It was a coming out party for McCoy and growing pains for Graham Harrell and it served as the prelude to a greater game in Lubbock, two years later.

3) 2002: Texas Tech 42 Texas 38 (Lubbock)

Tech hadn’t beaten Texas since Mack Brown’s first season and they hadn’t come close. Before this game, Mike Leach was just a weird guy who didn’t really connect with the Tech fans and had a strange offense. The Air Raid wasn’t being talked about or mimicked yet. The Texas roster was full of NFL players: Derrick Johnson, Michael Huff, Cedric Benson, Roy Williams. Late season losses by Oklahoma had the Longhorns in National Championship, they just had to keep winning and Chris Simms had to be mistake free.

The Red Raiders went down 14-0 early and displayed no aptitude at stopping Benson and Williams, it looked like it would be another Longhorns’ blowout win. Then, Michael Huff left the game in the first half and Leach took advantage. The Leach offense everyone would come to know burst onto the scene. The Red Raiders went into the locker room tied 21-21 and a West Texas shootout took place in the second half. Kliff Kingsbury finished with six touchdowns, over 400 yards passing and led a game winning drive, while Chris Simms threw a game ending interception to Ryan Aycock. Kingsbury was originally a Dykes commit and Wes Welker was a late scholarship throw in, but this game would allow them to be the Air Raid’s proof of concept. Oh, and my sister went into labor.

2) 2003: Texas 43 Texas Tech 40 (Austin)

I’m not sure I should have this game ranked so high, but it’s pretty fascinating when you watch it now. It’s the only game on my list that takes place in Austin, where the games are usually blowouts and snoozers. It also breaks the mold when it comes to heroes. In the first quarter, the Longhorns seemed to have PTSD from the 2002 matchup and BJ Symons had the Red Raider offense was rolling. But, Texas Tech’s kicker Toogood was actually Too-terrible and costs the Red Raiders key points early. West Texas natives Roy Williams and Cedric Benson always played well against the panhandle college they spurned for Austin. The Longhorns were about to put the game to bed up 35-21 in the third quarter. But, Vince Young showed his youth and mortality and Texas Tech engineered a big comeback and took an 8 point lead. Then, Vince Young was benched. That sounds like Trojan fan fiction when you read it now, but Vince Young was indeed benched in a college football game. The unlikely hero was Chance Mock, and he refused to see the Longhorns lose. Toogood missed a potential game tying field goal miles wide as time expired and a thunderstorm rolled into Central Texas.

1) 2008: Texas Tech 39 Texas 33

Colt and Shipley versus Harrell and Crabtree. The pinnacle of the Big 12. Mike Leach’s magnum opus. Texas’ best team that didn’t win a national championship (and probably should have, if not for the BCS). Texas Tech’s best team ever. For one week, Lubbock Texas was the epicenter of the football world.

I was there and I’ll have to write about that night another time. Maybe next year before the game in Lubbock, assuming there will be one. But, here’s a photo from that night.

That’s me, veins bursting from my forehead, wearing the Tech shirt. I slept on the ground in the stadium parking lot the night before, in order to secure front row seats to this game. This photo was taken by an ESPN photographer seconds after Blake Gideon’s infamous drop and right as Michael Crabtree scored. And this, well, this is a website about Texas Longhorns’ fandom. I guess Mom won in the end.

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Keys to the game this weekend:

1) Texas Tech has three great linebackers in Colin Schooler, Riko Jeffers and Krishon Merriweather. They’ll make the day difficult for Texas’ offensive line and running back stable with their size and strength. Texas needs to get Bijan Robinson, Roschon Johnson and Keilan Robinson heavily involved in the passing game to try to exploit the Red Raider LBs in space. Casey Thompson should be able to do some damage with his legs.

2) Make ANYONE but Erik Ezukanma beat you. This guy will play on Sundays, which the announcers will remind you all of 10,000 times. Texas needs to throw fresh bodies at EE constantly. Oregon transfer Tyler Shough will throw prayers up, hoping Ezukanma answers and the Texas DB’s need to perform better on jump balls then they did last season.

3) Remember it’s September in Austin, not Lubbock in November. Weird things shouldn’t happen, right?