“He should’ve picked that ball off. I knew he didn’t because it was right in front of me, but I still try not to think about that. It would have been a totally different season. A totally different vibe in Lubbock. I think whenever I watch that last play to Michael – I think about how much that could’ve been different and I thank Blake for that.”
Those are the words of former Texas Tech quarterback Graham Harrell, reminiscing on an epic showdown with the Texas Longhorns in 2008 that would be immortalized forever, and that could have been different.
Texas defender Blake Gideon, the ‘Blake’ Harrell is referring to, was in the perfect spot to intercept a tipped pass but it wasn’t perfect enough. The Horns made Harrell escape from the pocket and up to his left between the left tackle and left guard, who were fending off the pass rush.
“I threw it and saw Blake coming in and I just threw a bad ball,” Harrell said laughing about it... now. “I just remember seeing the ball go up and thinking, ‘this can’t be it,’ then it just went right through his hands and it was next play for me. I knew he dropped it. I don’t think you can write what happened after any better than how it played out.”
He’s right. You can’t write it any better. Michael Crabtree and the Red Raiders took a leap out of the locker room to a commanding lead. The Red Raiders led at the half, 22-6, and were cruising.
By the time you knew it, Texas made it 29-19 after the third quarter, cutting Texas Tech's lead. Then, QB Colt McCoy made it a three-point game following a touchdown strike. Look up at the scoreboard, and Texas Tech added a field goal while Texas ran an 11-play drive, 80 yards down the field that was capped off with a touchdown scamper to make it 33-32, Horns.
However, Crabtree and the Harrell-led offense didn’t want to disappoint. Both were in the latter of career-seasons and were the two faces of Red Raider football, alongside their pirate-fan-of-a-coach Mike Leach. Their fearless coach told them prior to the game to go out and “play 60 minutes,” Leach said, according to ESPN. “You may have a second to spare.”
Well, little did he know there would be a few seconds to spare –a few seconds for the Longhorns that is. Mack Brown’s Longhorns came out and lined up in man-to-man on defense. Harrell immediately knew where to go with the ball. And Crabtree was already dreaming about it. He took his thoughts and made them a reality with a catch and escape for the score and the eventual game-winning touchdown.
“Every time I see Michael I try to nudge at him about his postgame interview,” Harrell said. “I was standing next to him once and asked, ‘did you really dream that? I mean come on,’ but he kept saying, ‘yes, Graham, I did.’ So I just went with it. The rest is history. I mean I saw he had the corner on him and the safety was up top but I knew I had to throw it to him. He made a great catch and play. I just wonder if I was the guy in his dream throwing it to him.”
Crabtree made this catch during the only time ESPN’s College GameDay rolled into town for football. The electricity could be felt throughout Lubbock. Harrell said Halloween added to the mix when it came to the atmosphere inside Jones AT&T Stadium.
He still can’t believe how many tents he saw beginning on Sunday – six days prior to the game – after leaving practice.
“I knew it was going to be rowdy once I saw that,” Harrell said. “You could see how much it meant to everyone and I started to realize, ‘this is going to be crazy.’ Where you park is right next to the stadium so you had fans yelling as soon as they saw you. It wasn’t anything bad but I knew how much pressure we had on us. I mean there were plenty of times they yelled bad things at me though so I’m just glad we made it happen.”
The rest of the season didn’t play out as well as they had hoped, though. Texas Tech repeated with another top-10 win the following week at home over then-No. 8 Oklahoma State. The Red Raiders then dropped a big one on the road at No. 5 Oklahoma. That loss probably cut the Red Raiders' national title dreams short.
One current Sooner was on the Texas Tech coaching staff at that time. Lincoln Riley, the Oklahoma head coach, served as the inside receivers coach that year.
“That was a good one. That was one of the great nights of my coaching career,” Riley said. “It was different being at a program that hasn’t had the success just traditionally like an Oklahoma has. How important that game was to Lubbock, that program, I mean, you just don’t know if you’re going to get that chance or how many times you’re going to get it. To get it and win it in the fashion we did was a great night and was a game changer for Texas Tech.”
There’s no changing a 39-33 win over a No. 1 team in the rankings. Texas Tech knows that, too. On Saturday, Nov. 10, 2018, Crabtree will be honored for his efforts 10 years ago.
Harrell can’t make it but wishes he could. His current position as offensive coordinator for North Texas prohibits that as the Mean Green will be trying to reach their eighth win on the year against Old Dominion in Virginia.
“I started to realize I was getting old whenever I had recruits say to me when I was at Washington State saying, ‘yeah I was in third grade when I remember you threw that pass to Crabtree,’ and I go, ‘man, come on. You weren’t in third grade.’
Harrell’s career now as a coach is everything he wanted to do, according to the No. 1 quarterback statistically in Texas Tech history. He finished with 15,793 career-passing yards and 134 touchdowns, with Kliff Kingsbury directly behind him.
Oh, and Harrell is a Super Bowl champion. It may be from a backup position to Aaron Rodgers and the Packers but nonetheless. How did the biggest stage in football compare to a night in Lubbock, Texas?
“That was a special night and a special time,” Harrell said. “I have a lot of favorite games and, of course, the Texas game is up there. Honestly, like I said we beat A&M my sophomore year so that’s probably my favorite but I’d put this one before the Super Bowl. I mean at the next-level that game is more of a show. I would take a rocking Jones Stadium over that any night.”
The Jones was rocking last Saturday against Oklahoma under Kingsbury. This week with Texas on tap, Harrell wants to be able to sense that energy he had 10 years ago again once he has time watch the action after his game.
“The craziest thing is how often you get asked about it. Those were kind of the golden days of Texas Tech it seems. I mean we haven’t been able to replicate what coach Leach had going on there since then,” Harrell said “... I wish they would be able to. I think the fans in Lubbock deserve to kind of add to that moment. I love Texas Tech and I love talking about it but it’d be great to reach that and be competing on that level ... Moments like that live forever but they have to be created and executed and that’s what we did that night. I couldn’t be more proud of Michael for making that happen.”
