By DOUG IRELAND, Journal Sports
Texas Tech’s Tahj Brooks, the nation’s fourth-leading rusher, wasn’t the Outstanding Offensive Player in Saturday night’s 34-14 Radiance Technologies Independence Bowl win over Cal.
Or was he?
Red Raiders coach Joey McGuire stressed the value of the junior star in postgame comments, explaining that Cal’s focus on containing Brooks provided opportunities for Tech’s passing attack to flourish.
Brooks had a big night himself, by ordinary standards, with 99 rushing yards on 21 carries including a 7-yard touchdown run in the third period that boosted the Raiders into a commanding three-score lead (31-14). He barely missed his ninth 100-yard rushing performance this season, and 13th of his career.
But he did crack the career 3,000-yard rushing milepost during the Red Raiders’ 11-play, 65-yard march to their second TD, which tied the game early in the second quarter. Brooks is the seventh TTU back to eclipse that total. He finished with 3,056 career yards, and when his senior season starts, will be 1,164 away from topping Byron Hanspard’s school-record 4,219 yards rushing from 1993-96.
He finished with 1,542 yards on the ground this season, sixth in school history. Hanspard’s 2,084 in 1996 tops that list.
Brooks’ sophomore understudy, Cam’Ron Valdez, flashed his own explosiveness while contributing 35 yards rushing.
COMMENDABLE CROWD: Attendance was announced at a robust 33,071 – the paid attendance, not the actual body count on a sub-50 degree night. While the turnout was appreciably better than last year’s gathering that endured a bitterly-cold afternoon contest won by Houston over UL Lafayette, the in-stadium audience was probably closer to half the announced number in the 50,000-capacity stadium.
QUICK SCORE, SLOW CLOCK: Just 15 seconds into the game, the scoreboard moved. Cal scored on the first play from scrimmage, a 25-yard pass from Fernando Mendoza to Monroe Young, a play that took 12 seconds. It followed a Texas Tech kickoff return and fumble recovery by the Golden Bears that erased just three seconds, due to a slow trigger finger by the clock operator.
Later, time stood still on another first-half play. Cal lined up to punt 2:20 before halftime, trailing 21-14. Texas Tech fair caught the punt, but the clock still read 2:20. The Red Raiders padded their lead with three ticks left in the half on a 25-yard Gino Garcia field goal at the end of a nine-snap, 47-yard drive. The clock error had no bearing on the scoring opportunity, however; Texas Tech used two timeouts after its last two plays from scrimmage.
FASTEST EVER: That early Cal TD, with 14:45 on the clock in the opening period, was the fastest score in the bowl’s 47-year history. It topped a 48-yard Tulsa TD run just 46 seconds into play, at the 14:14 mark in 2015.
THE RACE TO FINISH BEFORE SNL: The scheduled 8:15 kickoff Saturday night was delayed five minutes. With 38 first-half points, the second half started at 10:30 – just before NBC’s Saturday Night Live show.
The game, lasting three hours and 33 minutes, ended 10 minutes before the show did. Adding the postgame awards ceremony, the on-field activities finished while first-time SNL host, and former cast member Kate McKinnon was on stage in New York City wrapping up the show, which made its debut in 1975, one year before the I-Bowl was staged for the first time.
Saturday’s third quarter took only a half-hour. The fourth quarter, with some replay reviews and extended TV breaks, required almost 50 minutes.
RING AROUND THE ROSEY: In an apparent cap tip to its most famous football alumnus, Kansas City Chiefs quarterback Patrick Mahomes, Texas Tech got a little exotic while converting a fourth-and-short situation in the second quarter.
Just as Mahomes and the Chiefs did in an early-season game this fall, the Red Raiders broke a huddle by rotating it, spinning and spilling out in order along the line of scrimmage and into a tightly-packed backfield.
Contact Doug at sbjdoug@gmail.com