When the Texas Tech football team squared off with Nebraska in the back half of the 2000s, the two programs were on vastly different trajectories. With the Mike Leach “Air Raid” operating at its peak, the Red Raiders were ascending the college football ladder while the Cornhuskers were in the midst of a free-fall that no one expected and from which they have yet to recover.
From the time the teams first met in the 1976 Bluebonnet Bowl until 2001, Nebraska had never lost to Texas Tech going 7-0 with the last four of those coming in Big 12 play.