Football Edged By No. 3 Nebraska, 41-31

Saturday, October 20

Lincoln, Neb.

6:00 PM CT

Texas Tech Athletics

3-3 , 1-3

Nebraska

8-0 , 4-0

1st

2nd

3rd

4th

Texas Tech

Nebraska

Football Edged By No. 3 Nebraska, 41-31

October 20, 2001 | Football

Box Score

Oct 20, 2001

Final Stats?|? Quotes?|? Notes

By DOUG ALDEN
AP Sports Writer

LINCOLN, Neb. - Nebraska's close game wasn't supposed to come until next week.

The third-ranked Cornhuskers had to rally from a surprising halftime tie to hold off Texas Tech 41-31 Saturday night and keep next weekend's showdown with No. 2 Oklahoma a battle of unbeatens.

"Any time you're involved a game like that it's probably draining on everybody," Nebraska coach Frank Solich said. "But we're excited about being 8-0. We're excited about being tested and responding."

Eric Crouch passed for three touchdowns and ran for another on Nebraska's first drive of the second half as the Huskers regained the lead for good after going into halftime tied at 28.

He also directed the Huskers on a 43-yard drive in their second possession of the third quarter that led to Josh Brown's 33-yard field goal and gave the Huskers a 10-point lead.

"Being tied 28-28 is motivation enough for us to come out and play a physical second half," said Crouch, 10-of-22 for 196 yards and two interceptions.

Crouch also had 21 carries for 105 yards, the fourth straight game he topped 100 yards.

It was not the kind of performance Nebraska (8-0, 4-0 Big 12) was looking for with Oklahoma looming, but it was a win.

"I think we did need this test to see how we'd respond," Crouch said. "We overcame adversity again. That says a lot about the character of this team. That's what a great team has to do."

The Red Raiders (3-3, 1-3) finished with 440 yards of offense, 75 more than anyone had gained against Nebraska this season, and gave the Huskers their biggest scare since a 21-7 victory over TCU in the opener.

"I would not say it's a moral victory," said Ricky Williams, who ran for a touchdown. "We came here to win and we did not get it done.

Nebraska didn't put the game away until the fourth quarter by holding off Tech on two fourth-down plays. The Huskers forced Kliff Kingsbury's incompletion on fourth-and-6 from the 34, and sacked him on fourth-and-8 with less than a minute left.

The Huskers, who had led every game at halftime this year, broke a surprising 28-all on Crouch's 7-yard TD run and Brown's 33-yard field goal in Nebraska's first two possessions of the second half.

Brown added a 36-yard field goal with 3:25 left for the final scoring in the game.

The defense made the lead hold up by limiting Tech to Robert Treece's 31-yard field goal in the third quarter, his third field goal of the game.

"I thought we played well," Tech coach Mike Leach said. "We are not going to go back and feel like there are a lot of things that we should have done different and improve on."

Kingsbury was 33-of-63 for 353 yards and a touchdown and Wes Welker returned a punt 85 yards for a touchdown.

"I was shaky early," Kingsbury said. "I came out too fired up and Nebraska had a bend but don't break philosophy."

Nebraska played a sloppy first half with seven penalties, a turnover, a punt return for a touchdown and another that would have been a TD if Tech had not been offside.

The Huskers led 28-13 early in the second quarter on Crouch's three TD passes, two to Wilson Thomas, and a 25-yard run by Judd Davies, but couldn't stop Kingsbury in the second quarter.

Kingsbury was 11-of-18 for 149 yards in the quarter with a 1-yard touchdown pass to Anton Paige that cut Nebraska's lead to 28-20 with 4:41 left in the half.

He then led Tech on an 80 yard drive at the end of the second quarter and tied it with a slant to Paige on the two-point conversion. Williams had brought Tech to 28-26 on a 12-yard run with 3 seconds left in the half.

"It wasn't really a step back. I look at it more as a wakeup call," Nebraska tackle Jeremy Slechta said. "That stuff's not going to cut it this next weekend against Oklahoma."

Tech surprised Nebraska with a 7-0 lead on Welker's 85-yard punt return after the Huskers' first possession. It was the first punt return for a touchdown against Nebraska since last year's game against Notre Dame.

Welker also ran one back 80 yards for an apparent score in the second quarter, but it was called back because the Raiders were offside.

Nebraska got its own special teams break in the first quarter.

Crouch threw a 27-yard TD pass to Jon Bowling to tie it at 7 with 9:11 left in the first quarter, then on the ensuing kickoff, Jason Wesley couldn't handle Brown's kick at the 22. The ball bounced off Wesley's chest right to Tim Demerath, who recovered it for Nebraska at the 25. Davies ran the ball in on the next play.

Tech's 28 points are the most Nebraska has allowed in a first half since UCLA scored 38 in 1988.

Five Nebraska starters left the game with injuries. Cornerback Keyuo Craver, wingback John Gibson, offensive tackle Dan Vili Waldrop and fullback Judd Davies all left with ankle injuries and offensive lineman Dave Volk might have dislocated a shoulder.

Starting tight end Tracey Wistrom also sat out the game with a knee injury.

"That's an awful lot of starters that fell by the wayside in this one. We're hoping we can get healed up and get those guys on track," Solich said.