 "Photo: AP Photo/Mike Fuentes")
LUBBOCK - Against a team that many had already crowned the winner long before Saturday night, Texas A&M ignored the voices and just won.
The Aggie players jumped around and yelled as the clock ticked to 0:00 at Jones Stadium, ending No. 21 Texas Tech's 16-year home win-streak against A&M with a 52-30 Aggie victory.
"In the beginning, walking by the fans yelling at you and telling whatever they have to say-," said senior defensive lineman Matt Moss. "It was really great having it be super quiet at the end and having everybody leaving with a couple minutes left in the game."
Moss was one of the most versatile defensive players for A&M, recording a sack, a pass breakup and recovering a fumble near the end of the game to put the Aggies in control.
After exchanging congratulations with Red Raider football players at midfield, the team rushed to the Aggie band and sang the War Hymn with beaming pride, high-fiving fans that made the trip to Lubbock afterwards.
"It feels really good and its one of the biggest wins of the year," Moss said. "We came in here and we knew A&M had struggled here in Texas Tech and we wanted to come in here and we wanted to be special."
The game did not start as planned when an early fumble gave some A&M fans a haunting memory of the 62-14 loss to Kansas State last week that began in a similar way.
But the Aggie defense did not budge, returning the ball to A&M and leading to a game-tying touchdown reception by sophomore running back Cyrus Gray.
The combination of Gray and freshman running back Christine Michael proved to be the knockout punch against the Raiders. Each notched his first 100-yard rushing game as Gray had 131 and three touchdowns and Michael had 121 and two touchdowns.
"This is what I've been waiting on," Gray said. "Finally this was a big game for it to come out in and for both of us guys to have a great game."
The never-quit attitude came from Aggie Head Coach Mike Sherman showing a video about the 1974 boxing match between George Foreman and Muhammad Ali to the team on Friday.
Sherman said he used Foreman going down in the eighth round of the fight as an example of the choices A&M might face. Foreman did not get up but if he had, Sherman said, he might have won because Ali was hurting just as much as him at that point.
"That was kind of an inspiration for us, but we had to come out here and bring that on the field," Michael said. "Foreman, he got back up a couple years later to fight more, and that's why we had to come out here and fight and score some big points and battle."
Tech answered Gray's first touchdown with a touchdown of its own late in the first quarter to take a 14-7 lead, but then the Aggie scoring machine turned on.
A&M went on a 31-point run thanks in large part to the performance of the offensive line, Sherman said.
"This game comes down to the offensive line blocking," Sherman said. "It was the best game they've had since I've been here. They did a phenomenal job playing together as a unit and securing this win for us in many ways with the run game and the pass protection."
The Raiders narrowed the gap in the fourth quarter to 15 points with a little more than five minutes remaining in the game but an Aggie touchdown and fumble recovery later put the game out of reach.
Not only was the game Sherman's first victory of his career against a ranked opponent, it was also the most points ever scored by the Aggies against the Raiders. The last time A&M won in Lubbock, 1993, Sherman was an offensive line coach under R.C. Slocum.
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