10 Things: Texas Tech 35, TCU 28

1. Game Links:

2. It’s Simple. It can be a pretty simple formula, something that I thought before the game. If it was Behren Morton, and it appeared that it would be, then pick the quarterback that doesn’t turn the ball over versus the one that does if all other things are comparable. And that’s exactly what happened. Behren Morton returned to be incredibly efficient, paired with a ground game behind Tahj Brooks that churned out yards and it’s a great recipe to win some games, no matter the competition. The defense was good enough (a little worried here) to hold everything steady for the most part.

3. Third Downs Were A Problem. On defense, this was a issue, typically third and longs, which is anything about 9 yards, TCU converted 2 of 3 and overall they converted 55.6% of their third downs. Amazingly, on 3rd and short, they were only 4 of 8, which means they had a lot of downs to get to that point and TCU needed an average of 6.2 yards per third down, which is a lot. The averaged yards per rush for TCU was 1.8 yards, so when they ran, they struggled, but passing the ball was pretty easy for them, 9 of 13 for 147 yards is sort of ridiculous.

4. 2nd and 1 for 6. The 2nd and 1 in the 3rd quarter that went for a 44-yard touchdown to Drae McCray was a perfect example of running Tahj Brooks all day and stressing the safeties with a double-post left McCray wide open to put Texas Tech up by 14 and would be the game winner. The defense focused on the play-action, even though that was a bit bungled, resulted in a beautiful play and the game-winner.

5. Defense Held. The splits aren’t great and TCU had a chance to win or tie the game with 2 minutes left, plenty of time to drive the field. I am sure that we were all puckered to an extent and Dadrion Taylor-Demerson came up huge on an absolute terrible throw, Taylor-Demerson looked like the receiver on that play and sealed the game

6. Receivers Showed Up. The receivers did show up again and it is amazing how much a healthy quarterback helps. McGuire mentioned it after the game that it was good to have Morton back and there will be times that we wonder if Morton is the guy, but there’s a reason why nearly every receiver had catch percentage of 50% or above, because he’s throwing catchable balls. Only Jerand Bradley managed to catch 1 of 4, but everyone else was really good including huge plays by Xavier White, Coy Eakin, Drae McCray, and Myles Price.

7. Defensive Splash Plays. I wish this is something that could get solved, but one of the biggest problems with the defense and TCU having so much success is that they still can’t get to the quarterback, not one sack for the entire game, only 4 quarterback hurries, and just 1 tackle for a loss. Taylor-Demerson can’t bail out the defense and this is going to have to be a situation where if the defense is going to be successful, they have to get to the quarterback and make plays behind the line of scrimmage.

8. Idle Thoughts.

* If you didn’t see the game, here’s the summary in 25 minutes.

* The penalty bug crept up again, 8 for 72 yards is probably too much and too many pre-snap.

* Special teams continues to be an incredibly solid unit. Austin McNamara pinned 3 of his 4 punts inside the 20. Gino Garcia went 2 of 2 including a 55-yarder. Price had 1 punt return that went for 29 yards.

* On offense, Texas Tech averaged 8.1 yards to go, which is way too high and the offense was 0-5 on 3rd and long. That’s too high of a leverage situation for the offense. The good news is that the offense did go 2 of 3 on 4th down including a damn touchdown.

* On 1st downs, Morton was 12 of 13 for 114 yards, but the rushing offense only averaged 3.8 yards on 1st down. I know that a lot of people like to get that 1st down run, but having someone like Morton helps you to be able to do both.

* The bestest possum.

“Honey wake up, Tech is posting possum content.” pic.twitter.com/nYhzEPpYIH

— Texas Tech Football (@TexasTechFB) November 3, 2023

9. Coach Comments. Head coach Joey McGuire (This is usually longer and the official website usually transcribes these quotes, but that didn’t happen last night, so I pulled just 2 short quotes. The full presser is embedded above.):

So two things we did, we didn’t turn the ball over and we caused turnovers. You know, if you do those two things, you got a great opportunity. It puts us in great situations.

Tahj Brooks, I was really proud of what he did. I thought Tahj was timely. He could have gotten frustrated (but) he didn’t. He stayed behind his pads and very few times did he ever cause a negative play.

10. Tortilla Tossin’ Players of the Game.

So good to have Behren Morton back. He was 28 of 36 for 282 yards, 2 touchdowns and that’s a 78% completion percentage and 7.8 yards per attempt. ZERO interceptions.

Tahj Brooks was over 100 yards again, 31 for 146 and a beautiful touchdown, averaging 4.7 yards a run.

Dadrion Taylor-Demerson with his 2 interceptions, the game-winner is huge and he gets the 3 tortillas. He could have had a 3rd.