10 Things: Texas Tech 49, Houston 28

1. Game Links:

2. Resounding Win. Another game I did not get to see, Yoyo had a soccer game and I realized when I went to try to record the game that I don’t have FS2, so there was no point in worrying about it. If you found yourself in the same situation, then here’s 12 minutes of highlights to catch you up to speed.

A statistical based 10 things is what you are in store for, but I’m still here and so are you.

3. Special Special Teams. Huge answer by Drae McCray and deciding to take the kickoff from Houston’s initial touchdown 100 yards for an answer, bobbing and weaving through traffic and then breaking it open. And then with Houston scoring touchdowns on their first 3 drives, the Loic Fouonji blocked punt for a touchdown was hopefully something to spark Fouonji (and it maybe was). It was a helluva athletic play, to get the block and a fortuitous bounce led to a touchdown. I’ll take it, and to just get the block is significant. Take a bow Kenny Perry.

4. Statistically Strange. Houston had 41 plays in the first half and 365 yards in the first half, averaging 8.9 yards PER PLAY. Not only that, but Houston had nearly 19 yards in the time of possession. Compared to Teas Tech who had only 229 yards on 33 plays and 6.9 yards per play. It’s amazing that Houston didn’t put up more points. In the second half, the tide changed, Houston would only muster 124 yards for 3.6 yards per play, while Texas Tech remained consistent, 171 yards and 6.6 yards per play.

Houston still had the time of possession advantage in the second half. A few things happened, Houston had 4 penalties for 46 yards, not having context on the situation, that’s going to hurt, while Texas Tech had zero penalties. In the first half, the run-pass ration was 19 rushes to 14 passes, which I think is a good mix, while in the second half Texas Tech leaned on the run game, 18 rushes and just 8 passes. That was obviously intentional.

One other note, Texas Tech owned the 4th quarter. Houston only had 34 yards and a time of possession that 5:49, while Texas Tech had 89 yards, a touchdown, and 9:11 in time of possession. Of those 89 yards, 85 were running the ball.

5. Third Down Difference. One of the problems last week was that Texas Tech was having 7 yards to go on 3rd down. This week, it was different, only 5.7 yards to go on 3rd down, so the offense put itself in better positions to gain first downs. And of those 11 3rd down attempts, 6 of them were 3rd and short, converting 4 of 6. Not surprising, Texas Tech was 0-3 on 3rd and long, but that’s not surprising.

And on defense, 3rd downs were on Houston’s side in the first half, converting 6 of 7, while in the second half, they only converted 3 of 8 and missed on their only 4th down attempt.

6. More Statistical Stuff. Texas Tech didn’t pass the ball, but statistically, they only had 32% of their plays that were passing downs, while 68% were run plays. We have talked a lot about rushing success rate, below 40 is below average and above 50 is above average. This week, it was 44 for Texas Tech meaning was just right in terms of rush. We’ve gone this far and haven’t talked about Behren Morton who didn’t do more than what he was asked. He was 7 of 8 on short passes, 5 of 5 on medium passes and you don’t expect the success rate to be big on deep throws of 15+ yards, just 2 of 9, but he did make those count, one of those being a Fouonji touchdown.

7. Defensive Struggles. The 12 minute highlight package you sort of see on some of the Houston touchdowns and big plays that it was largely missed coverage in the worst possible way and missed tackles. Tyler Owens missed a couple of tackles and didn’t make plays in order to prevent touchdowns. Ben Roberts I think was the linebacker that lost coverage on the tight end touchdown. As mentioned above, things tightened up significantly in the second half and to get Houston to turn the ball over on downs, especially on a drive that lasted nearly 6 minutes and the 4th down being a 4th and 1 on the Texas Tech 28 with the stop being made by Roberts and Charles Esters is huge. Houston came away with no points.

8. Idle Thoughts.

The drive leading up to the Houston turnover on downs was 3 plays, a Tahj Brooks run for 3 yards, an Cam’Ron Valdez run for 54 yards with an additional 15 yards added for a horse collar tackle, and then Morton found Myles Price for a touchdown for 11 yards. Total time of possession? 48 seconds.
Tahj Brooks and Cam’Ron Valdez each had 106 rushing yards, Brooks was more workman like, 22 carries for 106, and Valdez was more like the Flash, including the 54 yarder mentioned above.
We talked last week how the catch percentages were in the 33% ranges and there was only 1 player below 33%, that was Jerand Bradley who only caught 1 of 3 targets.
Price, Xavier White, and Mason Tharp were the main targets, Price caught 100% of his 5 pass attempts, White 60% of his 5 attempts, and Tharp 100% of both pass attempts.
Ben Roberts led the team with 10 tackles. That’s a handful of games where he is in double-digit tackles.
C.J. Baskerville had 9 tackles including 1 tacle for a loss.
There were only 4 TFL’s on the day, Jaylon Hutchings, Baskerville, Tyrique Matthews, and Tony Bradford.
The defense played 24 players.
Texas Tech was 3 of 3 on red zone attempts, all 3 were touchdowns.
Texas Tech gave up 1 sack for just 1 yard. Good on the OL there.

9. Coach Comments.

Opening statement:

“Man, we needed that. I was really proud of the team. When everybody got in (the locker room), the first thing I did was call (associate head coach/special teams coordinator) Kenny Perry up and let him celebrate a little bit with the team. We’re riding some momentum right now with our return team and one thing he really felt was that we could block a punt — those were huge plays in the game, especially in the first half when we weren’t playing great at different times on defense. And then you turn around and get a second-half shutout — really proud of the adjustments that (defensive coordinator Tim) DeRuyter made. I thought we tackled better in the second half. We got two running backs over 100 yards, that was one thing that we came in the game to do — to be able to come out and run the football. I thought the O-Line played well. Much-needed win. The guys are really fired up. I told them last night ‘It’s time to start being the team that we think we are’ and we did a good job today. We’ve just got to build off today and go from there.”

On the second half defense:

“In the first half, I think we were doing some things on third down that we felt could affect (Houston quarterback Donovan Smith), some different things that we put in in this game and we probably didn’t have the reps that I want to have in, so we kind of went back to some of the stuff that we have the most reps invested in. In the first half, it was more gameplan stuff and Houston did a really good job of taking care of the gameplan that we had. We played more games up front in the second half. I think we only had one sack, but he was moving out of the pocket and that was much different from the first half.”

On Tahj Brooks’ performance:

“He is really driven right now. He understands our run game. He’s running like a 225-pound back. He has such great vision and great feet and sometimes he can stop his feet and make moves, but sometimes you’ve just got to get the dirty yards and get behind your pads. He’s got a really great feel.”

10. Tortilla Tossin’ Players of the Game.

This week, all offensive players get tortillas. This first one goes to Drae McCray for his kickoff return for a touchdown. Huge play.

No doubt that Loic Fouonji has struggled offensively, but it was huge for him to make a contested catch for a touchdown and to also get a blocked punt for a touchdown is even bigger. Big day for the big receiver.

Tahj Brooks and Cam’Ron Valdez have to split these 3 tortillas, huge days from them including 212 total yards and 3 touchdowns beteween them. Brooks averaged 4.8 yards a rush and Valdez averaged 21.2. Thunder and lightning.