Austin, Texas ? Texas defensive coordinator Gene Chizik is on a 21-game winning streak dating to his last two seasons at Auburn. But he has never faced an offense like the one at Texas Tech, which is leading the nation in passing for the fourth straight year.

“I haven’t played anything like this in so long, it wouldn’t even count if I said it,” Chizik said. “This is a whole different world.”

So it’s a good thing he has senior strong safety Michael Huff of Irving Nimitz, whose mind processes coverages and alignments the way engineers comprehend circuitry.

“You would not want to go into this game right now with a lot of young people in your secondary,” Chizik said of Saturday’s showdown in Austin between the second-ranked Longhorns and 10th-ranked Red Raiders.

“We’ve got guys like Mike Huff, who have been through this game numerous times. He knows Tech won’t go away at any point during the game. He knows Tech may go for it on fourth down every time.”

Huff is a whiz at electronics — computers, iPods, video games. If it’s a gizmo, Huff is into it. Doing all the work himself, he has upgraded his 1995 Ford Explorer with specialty lights, stereo equipment and flip-down DVD screens.

Texas' Billy pittman is dragged down by Colorado's Tyrone Henderson (3) and Gerett Burl, right, following Pittman's 62-yard reception last week. Texas will face Texas Tech today.

“Some of the toys I bought him as a kid, he would tear them up trying to learn how they worked,” said Michael Huff Sr., who works for American Airlines in Dallas and was a biomedical electronics equipment repair serviceman in the Air Force for six years.

“First, it was remote control cars, then his portable cassette and CD players. They all got taken apart.”

UT co-defensive coordinator Duane Akina, who coaches the secondary, said Huff’s mind works the same way on a football field.

“He not only understands the defensive concepts we’re trying to accomplish, he understands what the offense is thinking, too,” Akina said. “So I can position him mentally to take the strains off of our linebackers and the rest of the secondary. I can put all the mental cover-down rules on him.”

His teammates appreciate it.

“The offense will be in a formation we’ve never seen, and Huff just knows how to adjust to it,” said free safety Michael Griffin.

Said Huff, an education major who will graduate in December, “The longer I’ve been here, the easier it’s been for me to pick everything up.”

That’s because Huff has always studied film, even back in pee-wee football.

“I would take a camcorder to his games when he was 9,” his father said. “He would come home and critique the entire game — several times. He would look at the linebackers, the linemen and himself. I thought he was taking it a little too seriously. I guess it paid off.”

Huff knows offensive tendencies so well, according to Akina, that Huff will often adjust coverages on his own. At the last second, he’ll reassign a linebacker or corner, so that he ends up on the tight end, running back or receiver who he thinks is going to get the ball.