The Lede
 |
Texas Tech Red Raiders (3-4, 2-2) |
 |
BYU Cougars (4-2, 1-2) |
 |
October 21st @ 6:00 p.m. |
 |
LaVell Edwards Stadium | Provo, Utah |
 |
Texas Tech -3 |
 |
FS1 | FOX Sports Live |
 |
70, Sunny |
The Cougars
After losing to TCU badly, BYU may make some drastic changes to find their spark (great, another ticked off opponent):
It starts with a lot of introspection, the eight-year head coach said in the bowels of Amon G. Carter Stadium after the second-worst loss in his tenure, and after heaping praise on TCU (2-2, 4-3) and predicting the Frogs had found their “identity” and turned a mildly disappointing season around.
“We find ourselves in a difficult position right now,” Sitake acknowledged. “I know that the adversity will get us to the right spot. It created a spark for TCU, and I imagine that they are going to keep this momentum rolling.
“What we need to do is find the same spark and the same type of urgency that they did this week,” Sitake continued. “Now we get to go home and play this game (of football) again against a really good Texas Tech team.”
Unfortunately for BYU, the injuries continue to mount:
Starting linebacker Ben Bywater, who had been out for the last month with a shoulder injury, will be shut down for the season. He will get surgery in the coming weeks and his future with the Cougars is in flux.
/snip/
Safety Tanner Wall is also out for the year and underwent surgery.
Wall was a surprise starter for Hill in the secondary, filling in for the injured Micah Harper and Talan Alfrey. Now BYU will play Preston Rex and freshman Raider Damuni. They combined for 78 snaps last Saturday. The Cougars have veteran safety Malik Moore too, but he has played sparingly and was pulled quickly in Fort Worth.
If you want to dig a bit deeper in terms of performance for BYU, KSL Sports gets into some midseason superlatives.
BYU receiver Keanu Hill is the son of Texas Tech legend Lloyd Hill:
The Red Raiders knew of Keanu Hill, and kept their eye on the prospect. He received offers to play at Wyoming and Texas A&M at Commerce, in addition to BYU. But for a variety of reasons — the young Hill mentions his high school’s run-oriented offense tht didn’t always put up big numbers in the receiving game — a scholarship never came.
“I think that was the big thing,” added Hill, a former all-district receiver in 2017 and 2018 with Trinity High in Bedford, Texas, whose uncle Roy played for the Dallas Cowboys.
Offensive coordinator Aaron Roderick wasn’t involved directly in Hill’s recruitment to BYU — he had just been installed as passing game coordinator and quarterbacks coach in 2018 during the recruitment. But the receiver has been “a joy to coach” since arriving on campus in 2019.
“He’s a great kid, and talk about someone who is accountable,” Roderick said of the receiver who he described as “pretty banged up” and “a tough kid” playing through physical limitations. “There have been times in his career where he’s been playing a lot, and then not playing for a while because Puka and Samson (Nacua) or other guys came back, then he came back and played well again. But he never complained, just kept working; he’s a team guy, all the way.”
Fellow receiver Kody Epps wants to do his part to help out the BYU offense:
“Kody Epps has to be very much more decisive. Kody Epps has to come out and play with intensity. Kody Epps has to make sure that he’s in the right spot so he can do his part, which will have a trickle effect amongst the offense,” Epps said.
“So, that’s what I’m looking forward to in this game — just making sure that I do my part so that we can get to third-and-short and we can get to third-and-medium. And then if we do get a third-and-long situation when we call the play up, I can do my part so we can execute.”
The elements Epps describes are things receivers have to do. They must make the right block on the right defender, place themselves in an area that may draw attention away from another targeted teammate, play faster, be more decisive and focused.
The Red Raiders
Back: Bryce Ramirez and Bralyn Lux.
Game-Time: C.J. Baskerville (knee ligament), Behren Morton, and Miquel Dingle.
Out: Jacob Rodriguez (likely TCU)
Don Williams answered some questions where here’s the question and answer about Bryson Donnell, but there’s more about the running game situation and all sorts of things:
Q: What happened to Bryson Donnell? He played some last year. It’s like he isn’t even third now and behind receiver Nehemiah Martinez?
DW: You’re right, all his action this season has been on special teams.
I’m not sure the specifics of what he needs to do better to crack the rotation at running back, but a few things to consider: 1) There’s a delineation between Tahj Brooks, Cam’Ron Valdez and everybody else. McGuire made it clear coming out of spring that the top two would get nearly all the work.
2) To the extent there are any more carries to go around, they’re going mainly to Martinez, a physical, battle-tested guy whose background is much more at running back than receiver. 3) Donnell was sidelined by a concussion in spring practice, and he came out of April co-third team with true freshman Anquan Willis, who McGuire has compared to Abram Smith, the 1,600-yard rusher on Baylor’s Sugar Bowl team from two years ago.
Red Raider Sports’ Jarrett Ramirezwrites about how receiver Coy Eakin has had a bigger roleover the past few weeks:
“Last week I thought it was really big that he caught that touchdown,” head coach Joey McGuire said in his press conference following the Kansas State game. “He’s a perfectionist, he puts a lot of pressure on himself. He’s really hard on himself. I think that one catch last week let him take a deep breath. The thing about Coy, he’s one of our hardest workers. He plays every snap with great energy and as much effort as he can give.”
In the midst of a season that has not gone exactly as many have hoped, Eakin’s progression has been an intriguing story to pay attention to. The talent, the work ethic, all the tools for the Stephenville product to succeed have been made available to him. Starting at the face of adversity time and time again, Eakin stood tall and will take that with him throughout his time as a Red Raider.
“Anybody that plays a sport, really, you have to love it. Especially to play at the collegiate level, you have to love it,” Eakin said “All that work you’ve put in all summer to get back just for (an injury) to happen again is pretty discouraging, but you can’t get too down. It really helped, I got all my teammates behind me, everybody was cheering me, and helped me out throughout the course of my rehab. The coaches always checking up on me, like a really great family here that helped me get back on the field.”
Lubbock Avalanche-Journal’s Don Williams writes about the decision that Joey McGuire will have regarding whether or not to play or redshirt Jacob Rodriguez:
The 6-foot-1, 230-pound junior from Wichita Falls Rider hasn’t played since he got hurt in the season opener. College football players who’ve not previously redshirted can do so by playing in a maximum of four games.
Thus, Rodriguez can play in three of Tech’s four games in November and retain junior-year eligibility for next season.
“We have discussed that,” McGuire said. “Jacob and I talked about it last week: OK, if you’re not back for BYU and you are for TCU, do we play three of the four and take the redshirt? So it’s been discussed. We’re talking about it. We’ll both make that decision of what’s best for him and the team. … You’d like to have Jacob for two more years, not counting this year and be in a good situation to do that.”
A nice story from Lubbock Avalanche-Journal’s Don Williams on punter Austin McNamara, whose parents both went to BYU and and when other programs found out that McNamara might serve a two-year mission they stopped recruiting him. Now, McNamara is playing around family:
“I have a lot of family members there, a lot of friends back home and in Utah as well,” McNamara said. “I’m real excited to be able to see them, to play in front of them. I don’t get out west as much … so it’ll be great to see them. It’s going to be a great atmosphere, great environment. I’ve been in that stadium multiple times, and it’s going to be a lot of fun.”
There’s another incentive for the Tech punter to do well this week.
McNamara and BYU punter Ryan Rehkow rank sixth and seventh in the FBS this season with averages of 48.26 yards a punt and 48.15 yards.
It’s not as marquee a matchup as one between star quarterbacks, but it’s special as specialists go.
Stats
Texas Tech, statistically, is a much better team than BYU. Now a lot of that has to do whether or not the offense will be as good if Jake Strong is at quarterback rather than Behren Morton. I wouldn’t hold my breath for Morton to play (I’m hopeful, but not holding my breath). Regardless, this is a situation where the rushing offense has a pretty significant advantage over BYU in the running game, while Texas Tech also does a really good job of keeping drives alive and a slight advantage passing the ball.
Defensively, the results are a bit more split with the pass, play efficiency, and drive efficiency being near pushes between the Texas Tech defense and BYU offense. BYU doesn’t run the ball well at all and that should be an advantage as well as BYU not being an explosive team and the Texas Tech defense not allowing a ton of explosive plays.
Advanced Stats:
Texas Tech Offense vs. BYU Defense:
Texas Tech Defense vs. BYU Offense:
Odds and Ends
More stats from statsowar, which confirm where Texas Tech has an advantage.
TEXAS TECH @ BYU pic.twitter.com/RKeKOeOy7U
— parker fleming (@statsowar) October 18, 2023
There may be nothing more tiring that the NCAA and Congress getting involved in student athletes, Congress bemoaning that student-athletes are able to make money, sometimes a lot of money, all the while thinking that college athletics is going to be destroyed. Personally, I think student-athletes is something that was a long time coming and wholly based on the idea of capitalism. If this is something that interests you, there is no one better than Yahoo! Sports’ Ross Dellinger write about the idea of student-athletes collective bargaining, but the question remains who is doing the bargaining with the money flowing around college campuses.
In the hub-ub of everything happening, don’t forget that Texas Tech soccer heads to Ames on Monday night, a 7:00 pm first touch, and Texas Tech is atop the Big 12 table for the time being with a 7-0-2 record and 23 points while BYU is 6-0-3 with 21 points and hosts UCF. A win obviously means that Texas Tech wins the Big 12, but a loss or a tie could make things complicated. Texas Tech is 2-0-4 on the road and Iowa State is 3-6 on the year. So don’t forget to cheer on these ladies on Monday night.
Don’t look now, but Texas Tech cross country may have another absolute stunner on their team with Julie Cherubet, who was named the Big 12 Runner of the Week for the 2nd straight week and is in rare territory as Cherubet and Sally Kipyego are the only two runners who have won Runner of the Week in consecutive weeks. Cherubet ran 6k in 19:20.70, which if you have ever run a 5k, you might be lucky to break 20 minutes, but she’s running an extra kilometer and beating her competition by 14 seconds. The cross country teams will be in Ames on October 28th for the Big 12 Championships.
Game Prediction
If you go back and look at the stats from last week it was clear that Kansas State was really good at what Texas Tech was good at, especially on offense, terrific at run defense to Texas Tech being able to run the ball, but Texas Tech did have a significant advantage in the passing game. This week, the numbers are a bit different and Texas Tech does have some advantages here, especially running the ball. I think a lot of this depends on who plays quarterback and I think even Vegas knows (or those betting), the line has dropped from Texas Tech being favored by 4.5 to 3, I’ll still take Texas Tech here.