10 Things: Texas Tech 66, North Texas 21

1. Game Links:

2. That’s More Like It. This is sort of what I expected. I was pretty confident that Texas Tech would win by more than 10 and I think what tipped me off was how poor the North Texas defense was. I asked that Texas Tech just get marginally better and that’s all I’m willing to say that the team did just that, was marginally better. I think it would be really easy to buy a ton of stock, but I think that seeing improvement multiple weeks in a row would be proper. I don’t think we need the “We’re Back” banner flying and I don’t think that the coaches are going to do that either. There may not be a lot to correct from this film, but look at last week and the week before that and keep working on the things that need to be improved upon.

3. 7 Straight. I missed the first touchdown as we rushed home from a cross-country meet and that initial score was 7 straight possessions with points, and 6 of 7 with touchdowns. Texas Tech was 6 of 6 in the red zone and that included 3 rushing touchdowns and 2 passing touchdowns. There was only one 4th down opportunity and Texas Tech converted. That’s much better.

4. Reviewing Keys. I thought that the keys to the game from Friday were pretty good (patting self on back). Get marginally better. Yeah, as addressed above, I think that Texas Tech got marginally better in all aspects. The running game was really good, the passing game improved from last week. The defense allowed just 7 points and 163 total yards in that first half and forced 3 turnovers. That’s a big improvement, but I’m willing to take baby steps here. Key #2 was not being dependent on any one player and I think the offense was definitely headed in that direction. Being able to play back-ups for the entire 2nd half was a huge bonus. Key #3 was to stop UNT from throwing the ball. In terms of 1st half stuff, Texas Tech allowed just 128 yards, had 3 picks and seemed like they absolutely wanted flood the field and force UNT to make poor decisions. They did. UNT also only passed for 90 yards in the 2nd half. Key #4 was not to be so aggressive on 4th down and that wasn’t relevant yesterday. Key #5 was to get the run fits situated and Texas Tech allowed 35 rushing yards on 11 attempts for just 3.2 yards a rush. UNT had nowhere to go.

5. Chef’s Kiss. This play.

Unique Run Game Design from Texas Tech

Full House + Double Split Flow pic.twitter.com/EWgOZdUAsh

— Coach Dan Casey (@CoachDanCasey) September 14, 2024

The dime from Morton to Eakin was just beautiful and the Conyers touchdown was great, was maybe going to be a pick-play, but the receiver didn’t do anything illegal, just the threat helped Conyers get open.

All 5 touchdowns and 3 interceptions from the second quarter 😳

📺: @CFBonFOX | #WreckEm pic.twitter.com/TSYXqJRrSB

— Texas Tech Football (@TexasTechFB) September 14, 2024

6. Big Plays.

Jordan Brown’s yards after catch on his 42 yard catch was huge and should have been the first indication that the UNT defense was pretty bad (to be clear, the run was great).
When North Texas missed the field goal to begin the 2nd quarter, that was the beginning of the end for the Mean Green because the pebble grew into an avalanche by the end of the half.
It took all of two plays for Morton to find Eakin for 70.
A pick-6 for Braylon Lux after UNT had the ball for 2 plays.
Morris throws a first-pass interception on the next drive and Texas Tech’s touchdown play was 2 plays, a pass to Tharp and then Morton’s 10-yard touchdown run.
North Texas then gets the ball and gains 7 yards before punting, and then John Carlos Miller catches a pass for 45 yards and dunks the ball over the uprights.
Morris is then intercepted again the very first play and then Texas Tech has a “sustained” drive of 30 yards that result in a Jalin Conyers touchdown.
It felt like everything just went right, kind of like ACU just couldn’t miss anything when Texas Tech played. Sometimes the football gods just shine on you and there’s nothing that you necessarily did to earn it, it just happens. I don’t know that Texas Tech’s defense did any spectacular things and I know that making plays on offense aren’t easy, but everything just fell right and that’s okay.

7. Spread the Wealth.

There were 7 receivers that had at least 36 yards receiving.
Of course Morton played only a half and had 273 yards passing with 4 touchdowns and a rating of 269. That’s insane.
Will Hammond went 5 for 7 for 70 yards. He’s got nice touch and awareness for a freshman for sure.
Tahj Brooks also only went a half and had 17 carries for 109 yards and a touchdown. Cameron Dickey had 10 carries for 75 yards and J’Koby Williams got his first touchdown on 4 carries for 27 yards.
Defensively, no one had more than 5 tackles, Bryce Ramirez, John Curry, Isaac Smith, and Chapman Lewis. Miquel Dingle and Dooda Banks each had 1.5 tackles for a loss and of course Ramirez, Bralyn Lux and Lewis all had interceptions.

8. Idle Thoughts.

Texas Tech had nearly 600 yards of offense, 598 to be exact. Texas Tech had 26 first downs, to just 12 for UNT.
Only 35% of all plays were passing downs, which is 2nd and 8, which means that most of those first plays were getting pretty good yardage.
in fact, Texas Tech averaged 8.4 yards on 1st down.
On 3rd downs, the average distance was 7.1 yards, not great, but not completely sure what it was in the 1st half. Passing the ball Texas Tech gained 12.2 yards per attempt on average and was 9 of 13 for 158.
Texas Tech finally had a good running rate, 50%.
Texas Tech ran 48% of their plays on UNT’s side of the field compared to just 35% for the mean Green.
There were probably people advocating that Micah Hudson start over any of the starters and that wasn’t me. I was advocating some regular rotation snaps and it was definitely good to see him get in the game. it’s really difficult to develop as a player and not play. I get that he’s raw and hasn’t had as much playing time as he was injured in the spring, but regular snaps was all I was asking.
Will Hammond can spin the ball. No, I don’t think he should play over Behren Morton in any circumstance. I didn’t realize that there were people advocating for Morton to be replaced and for me, I’m a really long ways away from asking for that. He had a bad game last week, but never thought that he should be replaced.

9. Coach Comments.

Head coach Joey McGuire Opening statement:

“I’m really excited and happy for the players. We got a lot of guys in the game and got to play some of our young guys. It was fun to see Cameron Dickey, who we have talked about since spring football and J’Koby Williams who we started talking about during fall camp get to play today. And then, I thought that Micah [Hudson] was going to score and step out of the tackle [in the third quarter]. Tyson Turner got a catch in the game. Holton Hendrix and Jacob Ponton got to play the entire fourth quarter, so it was really good to see that. And then it was great to have 28 back. Tahj Brooks came out and you could see that he was on a mission early in the game. He had big runs and did a great job in pass protection. When that happens, it allows Behren Morton, to be able to settle in, and operate the way he did today. The first half we had three penalties for 30 yards which was a reduction from the first two weeks. We did have two procedure penalties, and on the first and third drives coming out of halftime we had a turnover, but for the most part, especially when the game was competitive, we did a good job of cutting the penalties down. We need to continue doing a good job of that. It was good to see the defense step up. We lost leverage on one play, on their first touchdown, but it was good to see them step up. They created three turnovers, and we capitalized on them, so that was huge. It’s good to have a game like this and get to 2-1 before Big 12 play. And it was good to see Will Hammond too. That’s another young man that can sling it.”

On carrying today’s success over to next week against Arizona State…

“The stuff that we asked our guys to do, they did today. They did a good job of responding, especially on the defensive side of the ball. North Texas had put up some points the last two weeks. Their QB, Chandler Morris, was second in FBS in passing. So, I thought our secondary did a good job. I didn’t think Tahj was going to be out last week, after the Abilene Christian game, but the next morning, he woke up and his arm was bothering him. Hopefully we wake up tomorrow with the team we finished with and get ready to have a great week. I’m confident from the standpoint that if we continue to take care of the football on the offensive side of the ball, cutdown on the penalties and play good defense, we’re going to be a good football team.”

On running the ball to setup the pass…

“Running the ball early was big. There were a couple of plays that really standout to me. The first one was when Jordan Brown had the big catch, and he cut across the field. He really got us some momentum after we had stalled. Another play that was big, and this has been our frustration on defense, our inability to hold our leverage, AJ McCarty didn’t make the tackle, but he forced the ball back inside, instead of letting them have the sideline. Last week we let [Washington State] have the sideline twice. That ended up resulting in them missing the field goal. Ben Roberts is running like hell to get to the ball, and because AJ forced the ball inside, and maintained his leverage, we were able to get them to kick a field goal. I thought those were two really big plays in the first half to keep the momentum on our side.”

10. Tortilla Tossin’ Players of the Game.

Behren Morton was really good, 15 of 19 for 273 and 4 touchdowns. That is good and he really needs to play that good every week.

244 yards on the ground, 109 by Brooks, 75 by Dickey, 27 by Williams and of all things, Morton, Brown, and Hammond each had 11 with return rushing yardage mixed in there from those interceptions.

Ramirez, Lewis, and Lux get the final tortillas. Those 3 picks were devastating and darn near unbelievable.