Kingsbury Remembers 1999 Texas Game
November 03, 2000 | Football
Nov. 3, 2000
By STEPHEN HAWKINS
AP Sports Writer
LUBBOCK, Texas - Texas Tech quarterback Kliff Kingsbury remembers his first game against Texas as a painful experience.
The Longhorns knocked senior Rob Peters out with a concussion just three minutes into last year's meeting, pressing Kingsbury, a freshman quarterback, into action. And Texas didn't back off against the young backup.
"It was one of the longest nights of my life," Kingsbury said of the 58-7 loss in which he was just 5-of-19 passing for 87 yards.
But that was a year ago.
When No. 20 Texas (6-2, 4-1 Big 12) plays Saturday night at Texas Tech (6-3, 2-3), Kingsbury will be the starter. And he has evolved into one of the league's best quarterbacks in new coach Mike Leach's pass-happy offense.
"It's night and day. Last year was one of those learning experiences you look back on," Kingsbury said.
Kingsbury leads the Big 12 at 263-of-432 passing for 2,605 yards, and his 16 TDs rank second. Texas junior Major Applewhite has thrown a league-high 18 touchdown passes and is third with 2,000 yards passing (134-of-246).
In the same way that Kingsbury vividly remembers last year, Applewhite still can't forget his first game against Tech. The scene two years ago when he was a freshman playing in Lubbock is still fresh in his mind.
As they got off the bus, Texas players were greeted with taunts from a Tech fan whose face was painted half black. Fans threw tortillas at the Longhorns during the game.
"It's a little rowdy. That's to their advantage. They should be glad to have fans like that," Applewhite said. "I've been thrown (at) and called a lot of things, but I wasn't expecting tortillas ... I mean if you think about it, tortillas? I mean honestly, why not pickles?"
Despite the rout last year in Austin and the flying tortillas, the Longhorns can't forget the 42-35 loss in 1998. The two teams combined to score 36 points in the fourth quarter, with Tech winning on a 3-yard TD run by Peters with 25 seconds left.
The two teams combined for 942 yards, and the two Ricky Williams for both teams ran for just more than 140 yards. Applewhite threw four TD passes.
With Texas Tech becoming more comfortable under Leach, the former Oklahoma offensive coordinator who also installed the offense being run by the top-ranked Sooners, this game is likely to be more like 1998 than last year.
And don't think that the Red Raiders haven't been looking at tape from Oklahoma's dominating 63-14 victory over Texas last month.
"We've been watching the OU-Texas game and pulling stuff from there, things that went well from that," said Tech receiver Derek Dorris, who last week set a school record with four TD catches. "When we see OU run a play, we know exactly what they are running."
That doesn't surprise Texas.
"The biggest thing about Tech's offense is that it will be similar to the Oklahoma offense," Texas coach Mack Brown said. "They're really quick and move around a lot.
"You can tell that Kingsbury is a coach's son because he goes to the right plays, has been sacked very few times and has grown into that position since last year in Austin."