10 Things: Texas Tech 67 Arkansas-Pine Bluff 7

1. Game Links:

2. Dominating (But Should Have Been). That was what was expected I think. UABP was not a good team, the line was 52.5, Texas Tech won by 60 and this was a game where you didn’t learn anything, but at the very least this was live snaps against an opponent that prepared for you. This confirmed for me that this is a good football team, there is a lot of talent on the field at nearly any time. I don’t know that stats will tell us anything about this game either, other than the fact that this team executed and I’m excited about that.

3. Grades.

A+	PASS OFFENSE
I am impressed by the offense. I wrote before the game that Mack Leftwich’s offense is one where there are no trick plays, just running the same thing over and over again. It was incredibly efficient, thanks to the quarterbacks and the receivers not dropping the ball, maybe just 1 all game. I thought Morton found seams that were perhaps pushing the envelope a bit, but when those things work it is pretty impressive. I’ll be interested to see if those passes into tight coverage will work against tougher opponents.
A+	RUN OFFENSE
Texas Tech was ahead of the sticks pretty much the entire game, converted 87.5% of 3rd downs and scored on 11 straight possessions. Additionally, only 11% of Texas Tech’s plays were passing down plays, again emphasizing that they were ahead of the down and distance nearly every game. Just 29 running attempts, 294 yards rushing for 10.1 yard average.
A+	PASS DEFENSE
A pretty rough night for that UAPB quarterback. He had hardly any time to throw anything, his best plays were sprints to the sideline and hoping that someone would be open. Allowing just 123 yards passing is impressive. Not a ton to add, but UAPB wasn’t a very good passing team headed into this game so not a huge test.
A+	RUN DEFENSE
Allowing just 2 yards a rush, 52 yards and 26 attempts. Texas Tech had 4 tackles for a loss (non-sack version) and lost 16 yards that way.
B	SPECIAL TEAMS
Lots of good and maybe some things to improve on here as well. The muffed punt return for Alexander was an issue. The penalties on kickoff returns are a problem. However, there was good as Jack Burgess never had to punt, he had the best day off of anyone on the team. The team went 2 for 2 on field goals, Bellenfant made a 29-yarder and Harrington made a 31-yarder. Micah Hudson and Tristian Gentry are both explosive players. The blocked punt from Mika Harrison-Pilot was a weird play because he went completely untouched.
A	COACHING
Why not an A+, I suppose there were really no tough decisions for McGuire to make. The team was exactly who they should have been and the real competition starts next week.

4. Nothing Broken. After the game, head coach Joey McGuire said that there was nothing structually wrong with QB Behren Morton’s knee. Nothing broken and the doctors feel pretty good about things. I don’t think it should have been a penalty, Cameron Dickey didn’t get a clean block and the defender wasn’t aiming for Morton’s knee, just sort of fell into it. We’ll see where things are at this week. I’m surprised they let him stay out there for that final play, but he just watched a touchdown run so no harm, no foul.

5. 1st Down Difference. I talked above about being ahead of the sticks and Texas Tech averaged 9.7 yards every 1st down and had 4 1st down touchdowns. That’s not normal. 20 rushing attempts for 179 yards and 16 of 17 passing for 181 yards. Definitely pushing things vertically. Defensively, Texas Tech only allowed 3 yards every 1st down, 2.5 yards rushing and UAPB was 5 of 12 passing the ball for 40 yards on 1st down.

6. The Spread Was Evident. Not the point spread, but the offense itself. The wide receivers were split wide, past the hashmarks and then would be bunched together. Definitely lots of interesting looks from what I think I was accustomed to. The play of the tight ends were good and the announcer was right to mention how good they were blocking.

7. Height and Bailey are a Problem. Height might be faster than Bailey and Bailey was supposed to be ridiculously fast. I think I’ll be really interested to see how they play a team that can execute a bit better and these guys have to stay in rush lanes. The UAPB offensive linemen really didn’t have a chance to stop much of anything with them.

8. Idle Thoughts. How do we get to all of the guys who saw time and notes? I’m not sure.

The leading tacklers were Bryce Ramirez, Jacob Rodriguez, Ben Roberts, and Wes Smith with 4 total. No one really had the opportunity to play a ton.
John Curry and A.J. McCarty both had a nice tackle for a loss. I am not sure what Curry actually is, he seems too big to be a 5th defensive back, but his acceleration was impressive.
Adam Hill can run the ball.
The back up receivers are all going to be good next year. The fact that they have so many guys on the doorstep is impressive. Valsin, West, Turner, Hudson, Stone, Jones, etc. They can all play I think. When Virgil and Douglas graduate, they seem to have homegrown guys ready to go.
The Amier Boyd interception was good, but it was a terrible throw, I think the QB and WR weren’t on the same page, but Boyd did a nice job of playing receiver and getting that pick.
Johncarlos Miller and Terrance Carter are going to be matchup problems. Again, if they block and play with physicality, then this is a huge advantage.

9. Coach Comments.

Opening Statement

“Well, I was excited. Our expectations was that we were going to play really well early and we were going to be able to get Will [Hammond] in the game and Mitch [Griffis] in the game. And our plan was to run the offense. In this day and age when it is a constant evaluation of the roster, you have to do that. You’ve got to understand what you have, not for only right now, but what you have a few weeks from now to months from now. So, I was proud of the guys, and the way we ran the football. I thought we executed really well. I thought, you know, tempo wise, it was a point that Will Jados and Howard Sampson at halftime said, ‘hey, that tempo is for real coach.’ We’re sitting there and we’re pancaking somebody and bearing their wheels, yelling, gas, gas, gas, to get the next play going. And so, I was proud of that. Defensively, I thought we pressured the quarterback. I will tell you, those defensive tackles will stay in their lanes, which they did, but if they’ll stand in lanes, they’re going to have an opportunity to hit the quarterback a lot, because those two edge guys, between Melo [Romello Height] and David Bailey, they put a lot of pressure on the quarterback. Having to step up makes you see the stats whenever it’s all said and done. But overall, it was good. Just to tell you, we feel good about where Behren (Morton) is. Nothing is broken. Feel like it’s all muscle, as far as, like, hyper extension of his knee, and the pain kind of ran down the outside of that calf and shin area, but the docs feel good about it. So if they feel good about it, I feel good about it. I’m glad he’s okay.”

On what the team needs to work on ahead of Kent State…

“Well, we feel like we have two really good returners, in Micah Hudson and Tristian Gentry. And we have lazy people at the point of attack that forced us to get two holding calls off of two huge returns. So, we’ve got to fix that. I know Kenny [Perry] is going to be really upset with that. And then we dropped an interception. I thought [Mikal] Harrison-Pilot did a great job on the block punt. We felt like we had that opportunity with their two-man shield. And he came free, had a great block. It probably should have been a ‘scoop-and-score.’ We kind of panicked there. But, you know, I think we had one pre-snap penalty on offense. We had a couple [pre-snap penalties] neutral zone penalties on defense. The first big, really frustrating thing, really, to me, was the two big holding penalties on kickoff return. That’s a weapon, and you know when you have those penalties, it’s just lazy, bad feet and bad eyes. You panic, and you grab a hold of somebody.”

On getting less experienced players reps as the game progressed…

“If you go back, maybe up to the third series, you probably had some guys that were in there. Well, you know, our plan was to get the young guys in. Guys like Micah [Hudson] in, make sure it’s with Coy [Eakin] and CD [Caleb Douglas]. If we were going to get TJ West in, we wanted to make sure it was with Reggie Virgil, and Coy. On defense with some of those young guys, if we’re going to get Malik [Esquerra] in at the strong safety, we wanted to make sure he’s in with BJ [Brenden Jordan]. That was our plan from the start. So, we could play a lot of those young guys. We have some young, talented guys that we need to get some reps, because it’s going to pay off at the end of the year. Whenever you know you’re playing some really physical games and you’re banged up you need to have guys that have game experience.”

10. Tortilla Tossin’ Players of the Game.

Behren Morton appears to be progressing. Keep in mind he’s done this against lesser opponents, but he looked sharp and it’s difficult to argue with 16 of 18 for 201 and 4 touchdowns. For goodness sakes, 25% of his completions were for touchdowns.

Difficult to pick just a defensive guy, but I’ll go with Height. I thought his debut was slightly more impressive. If he’s just allowed to rush the quarterback, he’s a problem.

The running back corps had 224 yards on 26 carries. J’Koby Williams only had 6 carries (it felt like more) and Cameron Dickey appears to be the guy they want to carry the rock a bit more, 12 carries for 90. Dickey’s fumble was a bit of a problem, but that’s fixable.