As it turns out, the most compelling game of this entire wacky college football season may hinge on one critical factor: Michael Crabtree's ankle.
Crabtree, a product of Dallas' Carter High, is an otherworldly beast. Take it from a former wideout who knows greatness when he sees it: Crabtree is a Top Three NFL receiver right now. He won the Biletnikoff Award last year. When he wins it again this year, they should rename it the Michael Crabtree Award. He's that good. He had nine catches for 70 yards and two touchdowns on Saturday. By Crabtree standards, that's an off-day.
I only saw about a quarter of Texas Tech's Jayhawk massacre on Saturday, but I continued listening to the game on Sirius while running a few errands. The Tech radio announcers -- perhaps the most obsequious pair of homers in the history of broadcasting -- kept fretting about Crabtree's ankle after every catch he made. "He got up kinda gingerly there, didn't he, Jimmy?" "He sure does seem to be favoring that ankle, Butch." That right there was enough to show me how nervous Red Raider Nation is about Crabtree's status against the Longhorns the day after Halloween.
In the Mack Brown and Mike Leach eras, UT-Tech showdowns in Lubbock always seem to be epic shootouts. So the Red Raiders urgently need a healthy, amped-up Crabtree to counter the potent attack of Colt McCoy, Chris Ogbonnaya and Jordan Shipley. For Crabtree, nine catches for 70 yards and two scores won't cut it in a game that will be a disappointment if both teams don't combine for at least 100 points.
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