Glad Texas Tech showed up and played all 4 quarters!!! The below article is a great explanation of why Tech won. (sorry for the long post..)

Good luck to the rest of the Big XII!!!!

Dec. 31, 2004, 1:42AM

Red Raiders throw Bears for big loss
By JOHN P. LOPEZ

SAN DIEGO — This was Cal's statement game.


But today that statement might be hard to understand for all the mumbling and gibberish the Bears figure to be muttering as they collectively suck their thumbs from the fetal position.

The Texas Tech Red Raiders made Cal look like fools — and Texas coach Mack Brown like a genius. (OK, maybe he's getting a little carried away here)

You want some real BCS nonsense? The Bears thought it would be easy against this frontal lobotomy-inducing Red Raiders offense.

They figured to one-up the hated Texas Longhorns, who spoiled Cal's Rose Bowl dreams, by slapping at least the same 51 points Texas put on these Raiders this season.

The Bears saw all those pint-sized receivers and tailbacks wearing red and black and all but laughed out loud at the prospect of having to play in the Holiday Bowl. They saw quarterback Sonny Cumbie and knew he was a gritty player, but he couldn't throw the ball 60 yards on a dare.

Thus, in the final week of the season, Cal coach Jeff Tedford decided not to rub it in against Southern Miss, and it could have cost the Bears precious Bowl Championship Series points, especially after Brown wooed poll voters on national television.

Caught unprepared
Cal quarterback Aaron Rodgers called Brown classless and bush league.

The Bears did want to rub it in here. They wanted to prove to the world just how big a mistake it was snubbing them from BCS glory.

But they didn't know what Texas and anyone else who has faced this unique, wide-open Red Raiders attack did.

Stopping these Raiders when they are spreading the field, playing confidently and enjoying Cumbie's groove is like trying to catching fireflies with tweezers. Blindfolded. In an airplane hangar. (yep)
Sure, Rodgers could make Cumbie look bad in a long-toss contest.

The Cal offensive line probably could bench press more than anyone along the Tech defensive front.

Cal tailback J.J. Arrington is better than anything the Raiders put on the field. And Golden Bears receivers, long and lean, look like NFL prototypes.


Racking up the yards
But as it turned out, the only thing worse than Brown talking the talk on a national stage was walking into Mike Leach's laboratory of weird science.

"We were unable to stop it," Cal linebacker Perron Wiley said. "I said some things this week that we knew they were going to throw the ball and (be ready). They got us out of position. I'll give credit where credit is due. They made the plays, and they were better today."

Before Thursday, the Bears averaged giving up just 212 yards passing for the season.

They had surrendered more than 260 yards passing just twice in 11 games.

Cumbie doubled that 260 with 520 yards and three touchdowns, proving yet again that without firsthand experience finding the secret against Leach's wild imagination is like trying to open a jar of pickles wearing a straitjacket.

"We just haven't faced a team like that," Wiley said. "Seeing it for the first time today, we just didn't make the plays."

Give this one to Leach from beginning to end. He found holes in Cal's attacking blitzes and man-to-man coverage, constantly swinging short passes to zig-zagging receivers early.

But unlike most Tech games this year, Leach unleashed Cumbie to throw long more often, three times burning the Cal secondary deep.

So quit with all the griping about who did and didn't deserve to be two hours north of here in Pasadena, Calif., on Saturday afternoon.

Leach so bamboozled the Cal defense it became almost comical the lengths the defense went trying to find some kind of answer.

At various points in this 45-31 Tech romp, Cal defenders could be seen literally running into each other, pointing at each other — "I thought you had him" — and finding themselves with not enough men on the field or too many.

They tried four down linemen. They tried two. Once, they tried none, with all 11 defenders standing in gaps in the spread Tech offense looking for some kind of vulnerability.

The Golden Bears tried five defensive backs. Six. Seven.

They were turned inside out and upside down, committing so many uncharacteristic things like roughing and delay penalties.

Cornerbacks were turned around more times than the halftime square dancers.

The epitome of the humiliation: Tiny Tech tailback Johnnie Mack, all 5-7, 155 pounds of him, barreled through two Bears defenders for the second-to-last score, flipping would-be tacklers backward like he was Jerome Bettis.

The Bears said they didn't belong in the Holiday Bowl. And they didn't. Independence Bowl, maybe. (Ouch!)

At least that's the way Leach made it seem.