The Lede

GAME THINGS
	Texas Tech Red Raiders (2-3, 1-1)
	Baylor Bears (2-3, 1-1)
	October 7th @ 7:00 p.m.
	McLane Stadium | Waco, Texas
	Texas Tech -1.5
	ESPN2 | Watch ESPN
	72, Mostly Cloudy

The Bears

After the UCF game, Baylor had some injury issues:

INJURY UPDATE: Senior weakside linebacker Mike Smith Jr. and sophomore deep snapper Garrison Grimes both suffered season-ending ACL injuries in the UCF game. Running back Dominic Richardson has a high ankle sprain that “he pushes through. His carries are normally limited because he’s pushing through.” Defensive linemen Jerrell Boykins Jr. and Tre Emory are working their way back from injuries, and “a lot of that is getting in playing shape,” Aranda said, while defensive lineman Trey Wilson had a concussion. Freshman Dylan Schaub filled in for Grimes and was 4-for-4 on snaps, including the game-winning 25-yard field goal by Isaiah Hankins. “It’s been a tough season for injuries, and it continues,” Aranda said. Former LSU transfer Josh White “will move up, see some action” at Smith’s linebacker spot, along with redshirt freshmen Jeremy “JJ” Evans and Carmello Jones and junior Brooks Miller. “We need to be able to add some depth there.”

Baylor will look to play faster now that Blake Shapen is back at quarterback:

“I thought the tempo was effective because we were able to get lined up quick and there were no shifts and motions,” Aranda said. “And it forced the defense to have to be able to not make calls according to our formation. Get lined up, set edges, get tight on coverage, things that were so-so in being accomplished (earlier in the game). And I think we were able to take advantage of those spaces in between.

“Now, I think moving forward, it has to be more diverse than that. It has to be more built in to the fabric of our offense than that. That is what we’re working on and preparing right now.”

/snip/

Still, it’s hard to argue that the up-tempo strategy Baylor used down the stretch worked a heck of a lot better. The Bears scored 29 unanswered points, and in the second half they completed 71% of their third-down opportunities while averaging 7.8 yards per play, compared to just 4.3 yards in the first two quarters.

Head coach Dave Aranda said that he hopes that last week’s win propels them this week:

“(There’s) a fair amount to improve on, but it’s good to see the response, and good to see the fight and good to see the final outcome,” Aranda said. “We’re all hopeful that this can propel us into this next week.”

Baylor has won four of its last five games against Texas Tech, including back-to-back games.

Like the Bears, the Red Raiders started with losses in three of their first four games but rebounded last week by scoring 21 unanswered points to pull away from Houston for a 49-28 win.

“They compete,” Aranda said. “We are going to get their best shot, for sure. They’ve been giving their best shot to every opponent that they play. So, you can see the fight, you can see the competition in the games, you can see the not quitting.”

The Red Raiders

Lubbock Avalanche-Journal’s Nathan Giese writes about the offensive line and how it has improved this year:

“(Cohesion is) super important,” Staats said. “It’s five new guys that haven’t played together. I feel like right now we’re just starting to get to the point where we’re doing that. … We’re just building this cohesiveness, and you’re starting to see it.”

Wilburn, though, left the Wyoming game and missed the Oregon contest with a concussion, returning against Tarleton. The O-line has had its full complement of starters the past three weeks, allowing the group put together in the offseason to take the field as a unit.

Since Wilburn’s return, the Red Raiders have accumulated 620 yards on 114 rushing attempts, an average of 5.4 yards per carry. Brooks is now 12th in the nation in rushing yards (417) and the team is in the top third (46th) in team rushing.

Spencer said after the West Virginia loss that the offensive line had their best game of the season to that point. Head coach Joey McGuire said the same thing Monday after their performance against Houston. The unit is stacking success now.

Lubbock Avalanche-Journal’s Don Williams writes about how Texas Tech doesn’t need to make any excuses:

Want to be the big dog in the new, watered-down Big 12? Step right up. No reason for Texas Tech not to be that.
The Red Raiders need to make it happen immediately, though. Come the end of the season, a lot of Tech’s top players will depart. The roster’s going to look markedly different in 2024, a lot younger.
The first month was a disappointment. The offense was OK, not great. The defense hasn’t risen up at key times. In the Red Raiders’ three losses, Wyoming, Oregon and West Virginia mounted a combined five drives of 64 yards or longer in the late stages of close games that resulted in three touchdowns and two field goals. Four of those drives were 10 or more plays. Three took more than six minutes off the clock.
In this market, nearly all the outside scrutiny falls on offensive production, quarterbacks, run-pass balance, play selection and so on. Defense gets a pass. But the defense has broken late in all three losses.

Stats

Last week the stats were clearing pointing to a Texas Tech win, but stats are on paper and not on a field

Advanced Stats:

Texas Tech Offense vs. Baylor Defense:

Texas Tech Defense vs. Baylor Offense:

Odds and Ends

High school classmate Matt Mosley talks with Joey McGuire.

.@MattMosley talks with @TexasTechFB HC @JoeyMcGuireTTU ahead of @BUFootball vs. Texas Tech Saturday. Coach McGuire talks about the Red Raiders 2-3 start, the team’s improved running game, returning to Waco & more. https://t.co/6aNYgwBxKS pic.twitter.com/Cg5agpwfIM

— ESPN Central Texas (@1660ESPN) October 4, 2023

More stats from statsowar.

TEXAS TECH @ BAYLOR pic.twitter.com/PNXNaajlNP

— parker fleming (@statsowar) October 3, 2023

I do not watch ESPN’s College GameDay. I just don’t have time, nor the inclination. I also don’t consume Pat McAfee in any way, I don’t listen or watch or really care about him. I don’t have time in my life to listen so I don’t have an opinion about him other than I know he’s paid a boatload of money by ESPN. Washington Post’s Stephen Godfrey wrote about the College GameDay and Washington State situation, one that I was pretty clueless about and it starts, at least for me, with ESPN playing innocent about having a significant role in the college realignment process. This situation evolved from Washington State not clearly hearing Lee Corso, “no one watches them bowl” or “no one wants them bowl”, and then it blowing up from there.

Up to this point, ESPN’s editorial stance on its corporate effect on the sport has been to play dumb, as exemplified by an Aug. 26 “GameDay” segment by Wright Thompson. In the piece, he claimed “every school that sacrificed history and tradition to find a richer conference did so in an attempt to survive.” That’s a fundamentally false statement that indirectly insults the audience by assuming we’re stupid. Now, “GameDay” has evolved from being indirectly insulting to directly insulting in a matter of weeks.

Is McAfee screaming at a school flag on a cable TV show some kind of unconscionable sin? No, but it reads terribly. It’s one thing to operate as an unseen financial force ripping up the fabric of a sport to streamline your holdings. It’s another to point and laugh at the orphan you created, and it’s even worse when your millionaire talent is offended that the orphan is angry about its predicament.

It’s hard to imagine that happening on the old “GameDay.” There are a handful of great television shows covering sports. None carried the fully formed identity of “GameDay.” None has transcended the format, let alone in such an honest way, by being so present for and reverent of its subject’s myriad quirks that it’s divinized right alongside the sport it loves as much as the fans do.

ESPN’s Dave Wilson (yes, there can be good things at ESPN, you just have to be selective) tells the untold stories of the Air Raid offense. Worth our time.

Dustin Dewald blazed the trail in Copperas Cove. He was one of those players who got disillusioned with the drudgery of football in the 1980s, so he quit to join the golf team after watching his older brother get pummeled over and over as their QB.

“We got our heads kicked in trying to run the ball down the throats of bigger, more powerful teams, lining up in the Power I with an offensive line that averaged 195 pounds,” Dewald said. “It was just ridiculous. Hal came in and said, ‘All that’s going to change.’ It did. I think it was the first time in 10 years we didn’t have a losing season in Cove.”

Between 1978 and 1985, Cove went 10-69, including two 0-10 seasons. In Mumme’s first year in 1986, the Bulldogs went 5-5. They were still outmanned, but Mumme, who began by using the run and shoot, gave them a shot in every game. Then against district rival Georgetown, the opposing coach, Art Briles, blitzed Mumme relentlessly, making it difficult for more complex plays to develop.

“I decided I was never going to let that happen to me again,” Mumme said, reducing his offense to a collection of short passes and horizontal crossing routes.

Dewald threw the ball more than all but a handful of schools in Texas that year. There had been only two scholarship players in the previous 10 years at Cove, but he signed with Stephen F. Austin. Then, he went through the same cycle, quitting due to boredom and joining the golf team at Tarleton State. There weren’t any college teams he knew of where he could replicate his experience. Until he went home to Cove to visit.

Game Prediction

The line has officially swung in favor of Texas Tech with the Red Raiders now officially 1.5 point favorites, where the line started with Baylor as a full 3 point favorite. The link at the top said that 88% of the money was on Texas Tech and, well, that’s always a bad sign, right, that the money poured in at Baylor -3 to the point that Vegas then went to a pick’em and eventually favoring Texas Tech. I don’t know why the bettors were so in favor of Texas Tech, I don’t see either team being THAT superior to another. I’ve been wrong about everything that I’ve predicted thus far so I’ll pick Baylor with the thought that I’ll be wrong again. The advanced stats probably aren’t fully accurate because Baylor’s offense wasn’t fully loaded without Shapen. The one thing that holds me back is that Baylor’s defense has been terrible and now you need Texas Tech’s offense to show up on the road.