10 Things: Texas Tech 34, California 14

1. Game Links:

2. Not An Ideal Start. But this team battled back and was pretty dominant after a fumbled kickoff return with a touchdown a play later. Cal had a lot of yards, but they were empty yards and after Cal scored again in the 1st quarter to take a 14-7 lead, Texas Tech just dominated the rest of the way. That’s a microcosm of the season in a lot of ways.

3. First Half Success. We won’t talk a ton about the second half, largely because it wasn’t all that eventful, although I appreciate the lone second half touchdown coming off of an excellent special teams play that resulted in a Tahj Brooks rushing touchdown where he just walked into the end zone.

The first half was quite successful, 284 yards of total offense and answering the bell each time and more when Cal answered. The offense went 6 of 9 on 3rd downs, the defense stopped an incredibly critical 4th down in their own territory, Behren Morton threw for 213 yards in that first half alone with 3 touchdowns, ran 45 plays, and was very machine like.

The defense forced Cal to go 0-5 on 3rd downs and 0-1 on 4th downs, so even though the Cal offense was averaging 7 yards a play, the Bears turned the ball over as well. And although the Texas Tech offense didn’t excel in the first half, it did in the second. Another 4th down stop, 3 interceptions, a fumble recovery, 4 sacks, and an overall dominating performance.

4. The Offense I Hope We See. that’s pretty well-rounded for me. Texas Tech had 43 pass attempts to 36 rush attempts. There was definitely a more vertical threat and that will be something we have to see next year. Coy Eakin did a good job of stretching the field. Tahj Brooks was 1 yard shy of 100 rushing yards with a touchdown. It was great to see Xavier White get a final curtain call with 5 catches for 61 yards.

It was interesting that Loic Fouonji caught a 14 yard touchdown pass and Cam’Ron Valdez rushed 12 times for 35 yards. Both players are reportedly in the transfer portal, but wanted to play this game. It will be interesting to see how that plays out.

5. Individual Defensive Play. So many standouts. Amier Washington had 3 sacks and a forced fumble, which just wrecked Cal while fellow freshman Joeseph Adidaire had 1 along with Dooda Banks. That’s a young core of players making plays. The defense as a whole had 6 sacks and 13 tackles for a loss with Roberts, Banks, and Esters, all having 1.5 TFL. Jacob Rodriguez ended up with 6 tackles and a pick, while C.J. Baskerville and Tyrique Matthews each got picks as well.

6. Special Teams Again. Austin McNamara’s final punt (I think) is downed at the Cal 1 yard line and averaged 44 yards on 5 punts last night with 4 inside the 20. Xavier White had a key punt return that ended up setting up Brooks for his touchdowns. It wasn’t perfect, Garcia missed a 39-yarder, but went 2 of 3.

7. 3rd Down Stat Talk.

Average 3rd down distance was 10.1 yards for Cal and 6.2 for Texas Tech. Cal only completed 4 of 14 3rd downs, 3 of them by pass.
Cal also turned the ball over twice on 3rd down plays.
Cal’s biggest problem on 3rd down was that they were 0-2 on 3rd and short, which I think is more of a credit to the Texas Tech defense making a play.
Texas Tech went 9 for 18 on 3rd downs, which is great and was 6 of 8 on 3rd and short and converted 4 3rd downs by pass.

8. Idle Thoughts.

Cal was explosive on 1st down, 7.3 yards on each 1st down play compared to 4.5 for Texas Tech.
Texas Tech ran 51% of their plays on Cal’s side of the field compared to Cal just running 20% of their plays on Texas Tech’s side of the field.
Bralyn Lux and Malik Dunlap led the team with 8 tackles and they each had a pass break-up with Dunlap credited with a forced fumble too.
Dadrion Taylor-Demerson had 6 tackles in his final collegiate game and Tony Bradford had 2 tackles with a half of TFL for his end of college career as well.
The linebacking crew of Rodriguez and Roberts should be a pretty tough group next year.
I was sort of expecting the freshmen receivers to get some PT, but it was largely Eakin, White, McCray and Boyd I think. I’m interested to see how this all shakes out next year.

9. Coach Comments.

Texas Tech HC Joey Maguire Opening Statement following team’s 34-14 win over Cal in 47th Independence Bowl.

“Well, I can’t say enough about this group, you know, I’ve said it a couple of times. We’re sitting here at three and five, we come off of a really tough loss against BYU and I think a lot of teams would have folded right there, but it shows the strength of our locker room, how much these guys care about each other, how much they love each other. And, you know, they put it on display tonight. We talked about it all the time. Whenever people watch you, and you play with the passion you have, it shows how much you love your brother, the guy to the left and the right of you and so can’t say enough, you know, got behind early, bounced back and it’s because these guys are such a great group of guys and can’t be more proud of being their head coach and with that I’ll open it up for any questions.”

On his defense’s effort and true freshman Amier Washington’s performance.

“Yeah, you know, really excited about Amier. We’d kind of talked about a week… we kind of saw it coming in a bowl prep. You know, how hard he is playing… I credit a lot to our strength staff. They do such a great job with our young guys. And you know, they’re still going through normal lifts and just keep getting stronger and getting their bodies right and really proud of them of Amier. He’s one of those guys that took advantage of the opportunity. You know, I know the Lubbock press knows this, but when Jake Rodriguez starts and finishes a game we’re four and oh this season. So, Behren [Morton] and I were at practice the other day and the ones were going, the ones defense were going and the ones offense just got through going and we’re standing there and Jacob [Rodriguez] does something and Behren goes “you know he’s a very good football player.” He might have said a couple of other words in there. But yeah, it’s… he’s one of our leaders. You know, I thought we did what we’re supposed to do, things that we coach that hadn’t shown up sometimes this year, we hit the quarterback and caused turnovers and when you do that you got a great chance to win.”

On how important it was for his offense to answer Cal on consecutive drives before his defense gained its footing.

Yeah, we always talk about, you know, you have this plan of like how you think it’s going to go but we talk about wherever you get in the game, you know, you’ve got to adjust. We’ve got to keep adjusting throughout the game. And then we talked about complimentary football and we talked about that you know, if something crazy is going on one side of the ball then the other side of the ball is going to pick, pick it up and offense did tonight and it kind of got out of whack early on defense and so the offense had to pick us up and let us settle in and play and they really did. But that’s what we’re trying to do as a program and keep building that mentality. You know, every game is different. If it doesn’t go the way you want it to go, but you got to find a way to win that game. And the biggest way to do that is to, you know, let one side of the ball settle in and you know, just keep playing. We talk about it all the time. We just kind of say, you know, thank the other side of the ball. So when we got a couple of stops, we want the offense to go down and score some points and those guys did a great job tonight of playing off of each other.”

On this being the most complete game by the Red Raiders this season.

“Yeah, I would, you know, pretty close because Cal, you know, they came in here on a hot streak, you know, they won their last three, they totally dominated UCLA in that last game. You know, they got one of the best backs in the country. You know, and, and so I think it really was. I mean, we played really well. Great run defense minus a couple of runs that they had into the boundary where we didn’t set the edge, turning the ball over, but you know, we caused turnovers and then you know, we scored, scored you know, running the football, we scored throwing the football. And so I would say it’s probably the best, most complete game that we’ve had all year.”

On the treatment his team received during bowl week by the city of Shreveport and the bowl committee.

“Well, I know these guys can tell you because they had a lot of fun. You know, that’s a great thing whenever you have a bowl like this, it all starts with the hospitality. The Independence Bowl and their group is second to none. You know, I’ve been in the Texas Bowl. They are absolutely phenomenal. I’ve got to play in the Sugar Bowl. They’re absolutely phenomenal and I put these guys right up there with ‘em just because of the way they treated my guys and you know the activities they had for us and then I know these guys, man they had a good time I let them be grown men the first night we were down here. We had to 2:30 a.m. curfew and I think they got all to 2:30 of it, but they were ready for practice the next day. And, you know, that’s one thing about it man. They enjoyed their self and I’m glad they did.”

On Tahj Brooks’ performance tonight and what he means to the Red Raiders.

“You know, I think these two teammates [Behren Morton and Jacob Rodriguez] would echo this. I mean, there’s nobody better in the country at what he does and that’s just not on the football field. He’s one of the best teammates. You know, he’s a guy that maybe he’s not getting the touches maybe that he wants, you’re never going to hear that. You’re going to hear, “Hey, I just want to win coach.” I don’t know anybody that has created more missed tackles in the country than Tahj Brooks and you know, he’s really, in some really tough times offensively with guys being banged up, he carried this team, put it on his back and, and helped us get bowl eligible. So, you know, I’ve been doing this a long time and I’ve been, really honestly, hadn’t been around many people like Tahj Brooks.”

On the future of Red Raider Football with three-consecutive bowl wins (first since 2002-2004) coupled with several facility enhancements happening in Lubbock.

“Yeah, you know, we talked about that before the game. You know, that was something that’s really important. I mean, whenever you’re, you’re trying to build a program, you know, to do things that hadn’t been done before. You know, you’ve got to do things, one that hadn’t been done before and it’s been a long time. But you start with that, you know, the expectation, and these guys know they’re going to come back in January and we’ll have a team meeting on January 9. We’ll start right off the meeting with we’re both eligible, but that’s not the mission… the things we have to do to get better. And, you know, it just sets those expectations. They understand that that’s who we are and that we’ve got to work for more. What’s going on, I think Baron said it earlier, but what’s going on in Lubbock, Texas is as good as anywhere in the country. The alumni, our Board of Regents, our administration, have done such a phenomenal job. You know, backing what we need to be an elite program and so whenever that South end zone is built, you know, whenever that Womble Football Facility is built. Honestly, there’s no excuses you know, whenever it comes to facilities and getting guys ready to go play and you know, taking it to the next level. You know, we’ve got a lot of work to do, but you know, that game one next year, man. It’s going to be pretty special to be able to see that South end zone completed and be a part of that first game and really everything new at Jones AT&T [Stadium].”

10. Tortilla Tossin’ Players of the Game.

Take a bow Austin McNamara. According to SID Matt Dowdy, McNamara breaks the Big 12 and Texas Tech career records for punting average.

I think I want to give these two to Behren Morton and Tahj Brooks, Morton completed 63% of his passes with a 131 rating, 3 touchdowns and a pick, while Brooks’ 99 rushing yards and a touchdown set him up nicely for next year.

The whole crew of defenders. Washington and his 3 sacks and forced fumble. Matthews, Baskerville, and Rodriguez with their picks. Adedire with a sack and TFL. Roberts, Banks, and Esters with 1.5 TFL’s each. Just a lot of great play here.