It wasn’t just the football team that had issues with Wyoming, the volleyball team lost to Wyoming on Friday night for their first loss of the season, but came back and won matches against TAMU-Commerce and Louisiana. They play North Texas in Denton this evening at 6 and will be on ESPN+ and will also play Abilene Christian on Tuesday in Abilene, also on ESPN+.

Since we last checked in with soccer, they walloped North Texas on Thursday afternoon, 6-1, and then took care of business last night, defeating Abilene Christian 3-0. They will have two tough tests on Thursday and Sunday, facing two future conference opponents in Tucson, Arizona and Arizona State.

Very cool and congrats!

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— NUCLR GOLF (@NUCLRGOLF) September 3, 2023

Lubbock Avalanche-Journal’s Don Williams writes about how Joey McGuire’s words didn’t match the opening result against Wyoming:

As first games are wont to be, the Red Raiders had largely themselves to blame. Spotting themselves that 17-0 lead in the first quarter, they seemingly needed not too many more plays to put this one away. Instead, the offense did next to nothing until it was 20-17 late.

And the defense killed itself with penalties.

“It’s very disappointing,” defensive tackle Jaylon Hutchings said. “Anytime you go into a season and have high expectations, you want to live up to these expectations, but it’s a learning experience for us. We learned a lot about this team tonight. How we’re going to respond is to be seen. I’m excited for the opportunity next week to show how we’re going to respond. I believe we’ll respond the right way.”

It was 31 years ago that another Tech team came up here as favorites and gave a similar performance, losing 22-17. One of Spike Dykes’ laments afterward was “slippery grass” gave the Red Raiders trouble. That team was coming off a 4-7 season in 1990, so the expectations weren’t as high.

Not to belabor the Wyoming game much more, but I get being confident and sometimes when you are confident your words aren’t going to match the result all of the time. I don’t think you ever want to shy away from those expectations, or maybe not having any doesn’t help either. Generally speaking, I’m good with talking your talk.