By Don Williams | AVALANCHE-JOURNAL

Many days in practice, Texas Tech does a hurry-up offense drill in which Graham Harrell and his teammates go from one end of the field to the other with a rapid-fire sequence of plays.

Harrell

In preseason camp, the drill began with the offense starting on its 5-yard line and each subsequent snap coming 5 yards from the previous spot.

During the season, Tech coach Mike Leach changed it up: So that his linemen and receivers wouldn’t have a bold yard line as an easy visual on which to line up, the ball was advanced 7 yards after each play.

But the point of the organized chaos remained the same: Run plays as rapidly as possible and get on the line of scrimmage for the next snap.

The Red Raiders’ game-winning drive on Saturday was just what that daily segment of practice is designed for.

“We allotted more yards between plays. We allotted between 7 and 28 yards per play this time,” Tech coach Mike Leach said Monday, a joking reference to Harrell’s 28-yard touchdown pass to Mike Crabtree.

The drive was a six-play, 62-yard affair, took 88 seconds and gave Tech a historic 39-33 victory – the program’s first over a team ranked No. 1. Texas never led until it nosed in front 33-32 inside the final two minutes.

Crabtree

“I can remember they scored with a minute, 29 on the clock,” Harrell said. “Coach was standing right beside me and he said, Our average drive’s under a minute, 30 anyway, Graham, so let’s just go do what we do.’ I was like, Let’s do it, coach.’ ”

Harrell said the Raiders’ approach was to do what they do best. That meant they mostly stuck with one call, just out of different formations.

“Besides the arc, we just ran four verticals every play,” he said. “That’s our bread and butter, four verticals. We call that play more than any other play, and we’re good at it and coach Leach just said, Go out there and execute it.’ ”

An arc route is a screen pass on which an inside receiver, such as Lewis or Eric Morris, releases horizontally and runs behind blocks from split receivers. A vertical sends a receiver more or less straight upfield.

Jamar Wall gave the Raiders good field position with a kickoff return to the 38-yard line. Then Harrell completed a pass to running back Baron Batch for 8 yards, and a pair to inside receiver Detron Lewis for 5 and 11 yards. A quick sideline shot to Edward Britton took Tech to the UT 28-yard line, where two heart-stopping plays followed.

On first down, Harrell drifted out of the pocket to his left and spotted Britton, who mistakenly assumed the quarterback would take what he could and run out of bounds. Looking for someone to block, Britton was caught off-guard when Harrell flipped a pass his way at close range. The ball went through the hands of both the Tech split end and UT safety Blake Gideon, who blew a chance at a game-clinching interception.

Given the reprieve, Harrell fired a deep sideline pass to Crabtree, and the All-American flanker shed cornerback Curtis Brown at the 5 with a reverse pivot and ran just inside the boundary into the end zone.

Harrell said he’s never surprised when Crabtree comes through – he has a school-record 37 touchdown receptions in 22 games – but the QB wasn’t expecting to see that spin move.

Harrell thought Crabtree would step safely out of bounds to set up a short field goal.

“But that’s not Crab’s mentality,” Harrell said. “Crab’s thinkng, I’m about to score a touchdown to win this thing.’ Afterward, on the sideline, I told him, I was thinking you were going to step out of bounds, Crab.’ He was like, Man, come on, Graham. You know I wasn’t going to get tackled right there.’ I said, Hey, as long as you were sure, then I’m comfortable with that.’ ”

Batch said the drive reminded him of the quick-tempo drill, the one in which the Raiders run plays as rapidly as possible with each new yard line 5 or 7 yards from the previous spot.

“The last drive, I was having flashbacks,” he said. “We did a drill exactly like that all summer, tempo drills. I was thinking, We’re in shape for this, we’ve prepared for it, and we deserve to win.’ ”

Offensive tackle Rylan Reed said, “Having practiced it definitely helped there at the end.”

All the way downfield, the Raiders were holding back a timeout – to get the field-goal team onto the field, if it came to that.

They wound up never needing it. Harrell said the pace felt OK throughout the drive.

“The first play, we threw it under to the back (Batch),” he said. “The time was running, but everyone was just calm, like This is how it’s supposed to be. This is what we do.’ It’s nice that we had the timeout, but if you don’t have to use it, you don’t have to use it.”

Reed said Harrell set the mood for the rest of the offense by being calm and in control.

“He’s a clutch player,” the tackle said. “He’s a big-time player. I don’t know how much pressure he feels, but apparently he thrives off of it.”

Harrell said the plan didn’t vary much all the way downfield.

“Going out there, coach said, I’m just going to give you (the) formation, and (you) throw it down the field,’ ” Harrell said. “He was giving me trips (three receivers to one side) or doubles (two receivers to each side), and I was just calling the four-vertical play, because that’s our bread and butter. We were just getting up on the ball, getting set on the formation and running the play.”

Same as how they practiced it in August.

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