Huskers return to scene of '04 debacle vs. Tech
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BY BRIAN CHRISTOPHERSON / Lincoln Journal Star
There wasn’t a voice to be heard. Words couldn’t wash this away. Sixty years from now people would open up a media guide, see those disturbing numbers — 70 to flipping 10 — and sneer, laugh, certainly wonder what in the name of Buddy Holly went wrong that night in Lubbock, Texas.
“Like a graveyard” is how former Husker quarterback Joe Dailey described the Nebraska locker room after that West Texas debacle four years ago.
When buried by 60 points, it’s best to shower fast and make the walk to the bus even faster.
Join Scott Young, Steven M. Sipple, Brian Christopherson and special guest Mike Babcock on Husker Extra Live as they break down the Huskers' showdown against No. 7 Texas Tech. Click here to see the show at noon. Husker Extra Live also will be broadcast on the radio on Mighty Big Sports 590 AM.
The sooner you get away from the nightmare — from the biggest whipping given the Huskers in their proud football history — the better.
“It’s unbelievable to me,” Texas Tech running back Johnnie Mack said that night after scoring three of the Red Raiders’ 10 touchdowns. “I don’t think I’ve ever seen a team put up 70 against Nebraska.”
That’s because no one had. And no one has ever defeated Nebraska that soundly — before or since Nebraska’s last trip to Lubbock in 2004.
Yes, you remember it. You remember it like you remember getting your wisdom teeth pulled. Except you got anesthesia for the teeth pulling.
“I remember watching at my brother’s apartment here in Lincoln in just utter disbelief,” said Husker senior Todd Peterson. “At that point, I don’t remember ever seeing a Nebraska football team get beat like that. I don’t remember a lot of specific plays. I just remember that it went downhill fast late.”
Kerry Coil, a 32-year-old Husker fan from Denver, remembers watching the agony in person, then driving with friends 10 miles out of Lubbock — a dry town — to get a drink and see if that changed the perspective any. It surely didn’t, but count Coil among many Nebraska fans who figured it was worth the try.
“I kept the ticket stub in my wallet for one year (until) we played them again,” Coil noted. “I kept it as a reminder that we owe Texas Tech our best shot next time we play them.”
Just like the great wins, the great losses stick. People remember where they were, what they ate, what they drank while watching the Huskers that night. One NU fan remembered how his girlfriend dumped him amid all the Tech touchdowns. She had made apple crumb cake. He was ungrateful, too consumed in Husker misery.
Such is the impact of Nebraska football — even in the down times. When the Huskers get crushed, blushing is not just limited to the players and coaches.
“Any time this team takes a lump like that (Tech game) or last weekend, I take it personally,” said Peterson, a wide receiver from Grand Island. “I think the people in Nebraska feel for their team. I think it’s a part of their lifeblood. As the football team goes in a certain way, that’s how the state goes. That’s just the way it is around here.”
Saturday, for the first time since that football wreck four years ago, the Huskers find themselves in Lubbock again. It’s a game that, quite frankly, has many Nebraskans ducking for cover, fretful of what high-flying No. 7 Texas Tech could do to a Big Red team in reconstruction mode.
Husker fans saw 52-17 against Missouri last week and, of course, the memory of Lubbock four years ago doesn’t calm any nerves.
The 2004 game was proof that embarrassment can clobber you without any alarm to signal its coming.
People may forget this detail, but Nebraska actually was down just 21-10 early in the third quarter, seemingly in business after a 74-yard touchdown catch by Mark LeFlore.
“We were right where we wanted,” said then-Husker coach Bill Callahan, in his first year, after the game. “But we just couldn’t finish it out.”
It happened in a flurry — Tech touchdown after Tech touchdown, Husker turnover after Husker turnover. The Red Raiders scored unanswered 49 points. Texas Tech quarterback Sonny Cumbie had 451 yards passing.
After the game, Callahan told the team: “That’s not the team we are. Tonight they were better than us, but tonight only.”
“It was like everything was there for them, like everything they called was working,” Husker defensive tackle Titus Adams said the next day.
“The kids, everybody hurts. The coaches hurt. The players hurt. The fans hurt,” said defensive coordinator Kevin Cosgrove.
But probably the lasting image of the night is that of Husker senior quarterback Beau Davis, the only current Husker to be on the travel squad that night in Lubbock. He was then just a true freshman, a 168-pound kid fresh off prom who had never taken a college snap before that game.
But with 2:24 left in the third quarter and the score 35-10, Callahan inserted Davis into the lineup to replace Dailey. It went miserably, and to this day, people will occasionally stop Davis in a store. They’ll tell him they’re sorry he was thrown into that situation.
In seven possessions, the California native lost a fumbled snap while in the shotgun formation and four of his seven passes were intercepted.
“When you lose like that, it makes you think twice about what you’re doing and how you’re doing it,” Davis said recently.
It was a turning point for Davis, who never saw playing time in significant moments after that game, not taking another snap until two years ago. To his credit, Davis stuck around the program, upbeat.
“I was grateful for the opportunity,” Davis told the Journal Star in July. “There’s not too many times in life where you’re given an opportunity like that. I kind of look back to this day like, ‘That was my opportunity.’ Some guys take advantage of the opportunity. Unfortunately, mine was really early in my career. I just wasn’t ready and didn’t really capitalize on it.”
Another Husker quarterback in the middle of a redshirt season that year remembers watching that game at Illinois State with some friends. Joe Ganz didn’t see the entire game. They shut it off before it finished.
Bo Pelini was a defensive coordinator at Oklahoma. Asked this week about that game, he had a blank expression. He didn’t remember the score or what he thought when he heard the score.
“It’s kind of irrelevant to me,” he said.
But Renny Vandewege remembers it all too well. He’s 27. Lives in Starksville, Miss. Big Husker fan.
He had just moved to Mississippi to start grad school in 2004 — his first time living somewhere with no Husker fans.
The night of the Tech game, some friends convinced him to come over. He could watch the Husker game with them. It’d be fun.
When he arrived, the host’s parents were among those there. As the game spiraled out of control, the woman’s father kept telling Vandewege how embarrassed he must be and how bad the Huskers had become.
Recalled Vandewege: “It was the first time I had wanted to beat up an old man.”
No country for old men? When the Huskers give up 70, maybe so.
Reach Brian Christopherson at 473-7439 or bchristopherson@journalstar.com.
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