1. Game Links:

Game Recap
Stats (PDF)
Highlights

2. Well, well, well, we meet again defense. Lack of execution, lack of pass rush, just missing tackles, not orgaized at all, and I just don’t know about the whole idea of being 22 deep. I know that some players were out, but this just wasn’t it. Andn I don’t know that I need to explain what happened. You saw that and I don’t need to explain it. I tried to take notes on my phone of missed tackles, but the zone was absolutely picked apart.

And this wouldn’t be fair to give credit to Maverick McIvor who was absolutely outstanding. Some of that was just him playing lights out, I just don’t recall seeing a quarterback absolutely deal like he did last night so credit goes to him and that receiving corps was fantastic.

3. Honoring the Win. After the game, McGuire said that you always honor the win. He’s extremely disappointed with the play of the defense, but they kept playing and it took up until the very last play to make a play, sacking McIvor. McGuire said that the defense was holding their heads down (and you’re probably saying good) and he did tell them to keep their heads up. And I think that’s where you want the team to be, the defense is disappointed with what happened but that the coach is telling them to not keep their heads down.

I recall some press conference recently where McGuire was talking about last week’s game between SMU and Nevada and SMU struggled to win. He asked his staff what they saw or thought about the game and SMU’s expectations for the season and the staff had things to say, but McGuire said that the biggest thing is that they got the win and that is the most important thing.

And that’s not to say that you and I have to celebrate this win, but these players probably feel pretty terrible about their play and don’t need any help from me.

4. Offense Shined (Mostly). I was really pretty happy with the offense and the times that the offense struggled was because of penalties and mistakes and if those penalties and mistakes can be remedied, then I think the offense will be fine.

This version of Behren Morton is good. He didn’t force anything, I can’t recall a near-interception and he threw the ball away. In fact, in the sack or one of the sacks that he had, Morton was caught stepping up in the pocket, exactly what he was taught during the offseason, when he could have scrambled outside and thrown the ball away or made a play. But he stepped up. And then in a later series, he did realize that he doesn’t have to step up into the pocket every time, he scrambled to the right I think and made a nice completion on the run.

The most disappointing part about the offense was the series where the ball was in or near the 1-yard line and went for it on 4th down only to turn the ball over on downs as the ACU defense made plays. The left tackle whiffs on the defensive tackle badly and the offensive line didn’t impose their will. The announcer even said that Clay McGuire was imploring his team to get it done on 4th down and they farted and fell down. After the game, McGuire said that Davion Carter was banged up in the second half so they had to switch things around and I thought the offensive line wasn’t better in the first half than the second and my hope was that the offensive line was more than 5 deep, but maybe it is not.

5. 615. That’s the total number of yards that Abilene Christian rolled up on Texas Tech and averaged 7.2 yards a play where their offense only averaged 3.1 yards a rush. McIvor averaged 9.9 yards per attempt. That’s bonkers. And he was darn near perfect dropping passes in the zone. It was both amazing to watch and incredibly frustrating to watch how good he was at seeing the defense. I know that this says a lot about the defense, but I feel like he made plays and passes that a lot of quarterbacks won’t make.

6. Third Downs. The biggest problem was the third down situation for the defense. It seems as if there was no situation that ACU found themselves in that they could not wriggle out of because they went 11 of 16 on 3rd downs, 69% overall. On third and long, they went 2 of 3, so that wasn’t a problem. And for the game, ACU went 11 of 14 passing on third downs for 223 yards, averaging 20 yards per completion. So when ACU had the plan to go balls out for third downs, they weren’t just satisfied with going to the sticks. When you have a quarterback dealing like McIvor, that’s a lot absolutely the right call and it worked to perfection.

7. Other Numbers. The Texas Tech offense went 8 of 15 on third downs, which is really fine. The thing you don’t like to see is the 6.6 yards to go for third downs, that’s too high. Texas Tech was just 2 of 5 on third and long (9+ yards).

On 1st down, Texas Tech averaged 7.3 yards, which is fantastic and this by far was what kept the offense rolling, 6.1 yards rushing for every first down and 15 of 20 for 162 yards passing.

What hurt is that of the 11 penalties, 3 of them were on 1st down and that was problematic for the offense to overcome and they have to be better about that.

8. Idle Thoughts.

• The 11 penalties is not cool, not cool at all. The Cofield roughing the passer was bullsh, I understand why they called it, but that was not malicious, that was just football.
• Time of possession was 33:48 in favor of ACU to just 26:07 for Texas Tech.
• Morton’s final line of 30 of 42 for 378, 5 touchdowns, completing 71% of his passes, and a rating of 186 is great.
• Coy Eakin, Jalin Conyers, and Caleb Douglas all played really well and I’m happy that they performed. Eakin caught 5 of 8 thrown his way for 76 yards and 2 touchdowns. Conyers caught all 5 thrown his way for 63 yards and an absolute beaut of a touchdown. Douglas caught 4 of 6 for 42 yards and what turned out to be the game-winning touchdowns.
• Not finding time for Micah Hudson is inexcusable. On every level, not to get him more snaps isn’t going to play. McGuire said that they wanted to go with more veteran guys, but I don’t care. Don’t let that happen again because Hudson won’t be here very long if this happens two games in a row. And maybe he’s not ready, but that’s not what we’ve been told all offseason.
• I’m not going to highlight any defensive players other than to note that Jacob Rodriguez had 13 tackles and Mo Horn had 11. It felt like every defender missed at least 1 tackle or the defensive line was misaligned to just allow an ACU running back to get big yards and there was no one there to even put up a fight.
• The defense has a long ways to go and a short time to get there.

9. Coach Comments.

Red Raider Sports’ Justin Apodaca:

“You could check off everything that could go wrong in the back end at different times,” McGuire said. “I talked to their [offensive] coordinator afterwards. I thought he did a great job. You know, he comes from a great tree. They call it, you know, we talked about his air raid 2.0 and I thought he did a great job. They got some really good, skilled players. We know some of them, and you know, those guys made some big plays.

But it was a mixture, you know, a mixture of those guys making plays, it’s a mixture of, I think four of the five guys that we started tonight in the secondary, that was their first college start…we definitely have got to improve in a hurry in the secondary, especially with the team that we’re about to play.”

Lubbock Avalanche-Journal’s Don Williams:

“Everything that could go wrong in the back end, at different times did,” said Tech coach Joey McGuire, who was pleased nevertheless that the Red Raiders avoided a humiliating loss.

10. Tortilla Tossin’ Players of the Game.

Josh Kelly is the real deal. Kelly had 10 catches, 15 targets, for 156 yards, 1 touchdown and just fantastic play overall.

Drae McCray was fantastic and there’s a better than zero chance that he isn’t kicked to for the rest of the season. McCray had 3 kick returns for 165 yards, averaging 55 yards a return and a long return of 74 yards. He flipped the field numerous times.

I thought that was an appropriate amount of work for Tahj Brooks, 27 carries for 153 yards, 5.7 yards, 1 touchdown and he looked like he did last year. I’ll take it.