10 Things: Texas Tech 45, Oregon State 14

1. Game Links:

2. Another Dominant Effort. I have underestimated the defense. Maybe I am just burned by years to not thinking that the pre-conference play is a mirage, but it appears to be as real as you and I. Through the first 3 quarters, Oregon State ran for negative 0.1 yards per rush and that’s off of 19 rush attempts. Now some of that is sack yardage, but the total rush yards was -2. Then to just add to that, the defense allowed 166 yards passing on 13 attempts, 4.7 yards per attempt with 2 interceptions. Oregon State averaged 3 yards per play. That’s not winning football, but that’s also a dominant defense. And then to add to that, Texas Tech had 534 yards of offense through 3 quarters, including 464 yards passing and 38 points. This is a really good football team. I don’t know what’s in store moving forward, but this is real.

3. Grades.

A	PASS OFFENSE
Morton was really good and maybe made his first major mistake of the year with that interception in the end zone. A forced pass, but I honestly would have thought that Carter would have jumped higher, it’s like he didn’t get a good bounce. Regardless, it was in double-coverage and after the game he said he was trying to give Caleb Douglas a high ball. So not perfect, but Morton had 464 yards passing and the use of the running backs out of the backfield, particularly in patterns that aren’t just screens or dumps, that Williams TD was him in an actual pattern.
B+	RUN OFFENSE
The output looks fine, 133 yards on 41 carries, but 3.2 yards a carry. At no point did I think that the rushing offense was bad, but there were times that Oregon State was behind the line of scrimmage and making negative plays, 5 from what I can tell. Utah is going to likely have the ability to do this on a higher level so the line maybe needs to be better.
A	PASS DEFENSE
The final numbers don’t look great, 276 yards passing, but Oregon State only completed 54% and averaged 6 yard a pass. Part of the equation is 11 quarterback hurries plus 3 sacks makes life incredibly difficult for any opposing quarterback.
A+	RUN DEFENSE
I’ve already mentioned how much the defense dominated here, but the final numbers were 8 yards on 22 carries. I don’t know how it can be any better. The guys up front are dominant and it’s making the linebackers almost seem unnecessary because they are so good and they appear to be two-deep.
A	SPECIAL TEAMS
Most importantly, no penalties from what I can remember. I’d say that this was a pretty clean effort. Made the only field goal attempt, Burgess averaged 49 yards a punt and the kickoff returns weren’t anything great but that’s fine.
A-	COACHING
Again, not a ton of coaching involved. No real tough decisions, but what a luxury. Maybe the toughest one was going for it on 4th down that didn’t work out, but whatever. Keeping the team ready after the long delay is key and they certainly were ready as soon as the game picked back up.

4. Defensive Dominance. The final individual defensive stats aren’t going to wow you at all, but this is such a good group. David Bailey recorded a sack and then had 4 quarterback hurries, with Romello Height having 2, Ben Roberts with 2, Skyler Gill-Howard having 2, that’s guys up and down the defense that are pressuring the quarterback. Cole Wisniewski led the defense having 7 tackles with a sack, and 1.5 tackles for a loss. John Curry appears to be more than qualified to get the time as he and Jacob Rodriguez each had 7 tackles as well. We haven’t even had time to mention Brice Pollack’s 2 interceptions.

5. Receivers Are Special. Coy Eakin’s touchdown grab was a spectacular catch and he finished the day with 139 yards on just 6 catches, averaging 23 yards a catch. I thought that he would have a day given that the slot defender was not a big guy. Caleb Douglas took advantage of one-on-one coverage and simply made the play on 61 yards. He’ll have more opportunities because you can’t cover everyone. Terrence Carter, Jr. is another matchup problem, was too fast for a linebacker to cover him and too big for a defensive back. And Johncarlos Miller isn’t far behind in terms of athleticism.

6. Penalties Are Back (Sorta). I think that J’Koby Williams celebration penalty was terrible. We mentioned Morton’s interception, but the grounding penalty was legitimate I thought. Offensively, there were 3 holding penalties (Jados, Miller, and Sill) that need to be cleaned up, that can’t happen against Utah, to get behind the sticks. And then there were 2 pre-snap penalties, false starts on Wilson and Jados. There were 3 defensive penalties, weirdly 2 were on Keyshawn Williams for being lined up offsides in the 4th quarter so that’s something to fix and then the hand to the face on the quarterback was sort of a bang-bang moment, not a huge deal for me. That’s 10 penalties for 80 yards.

7. Stats.

Texas Tech converted 9 of 15 on 3rd down, good for 60% with the average down and distance being 8.9 yards. Some of that was due to huge penalties and would love to know the median rather than the average. Regardless, the offense was 2 for 5 on 9+ yards on 3rd down and 7 for 8 on 3rd and short. Texas Tech was able to pass 6 of 11 on 3rd down for 110 yards and when that did work, it was 18 yards a completion.
Oregon State completed just 7 of 17 on 3rd down and on 3rd and 9+ they were just 1 of 6 and their average needed on 3rd down was 7.5 yards, but gained only 4.8
Texas Tech was 6 of 11 on deep passes of 15+ yards (one of which included Hammond’s pick) and that’s pretty significant to connect on so many big passes. A total of 13 of 17 on short and 6 of 8 on medium passes.
Texas Tech was in passing downs on just 26% of their plays, which means that they stayed ahead of the sticks again. On 1st down plays, Texas Tech averaged 7.6 yards per play.
For Oregon State on the same stats, they were in passing downs 47% of the time and their average 1st down was 4.5 yards. Not terrible to be honest.
The Texas Tech offense had 18 big plays for 436 yards. That’s a huge number.
The Texas Tech defense had a final stat line of 6 tackles for a loss, 5 pass break-ups, 2 interceptions, and 11 quarterback hurries.

8. Idle Thoughts.

I thought the defensive line was dominant with a capital “D”. Jayden Cofield as a backup was very good, same thing with AJ Holmes. Lee Hunter is so good at clogging up the middle, not going to show up on a ton of stats, but he’s really difficult to move.
I am continually impressed with Romello Height and David Bailey. They logged a ton of snaps and I worry about Bailey being a bit undersized as a defensive end, but in terms of getting to the quarterback, there is no reason to worry.
After the game, head coach Joey McGuire said that Amier Boyd was in uniform, but did not play and did not want to discuss why he didn’t play, but said it was a good question for the media to ask.
We haven’t even discussed the running back production, but goodness. With J’Koby Williams he had 7 catches for 116 yards and 13 carries for 48 yards, while Cameron Dickey had 17 carries for 77 yards. The rushing numbers don’t look all that great, but don’t let Williams or Dickey get 1-on-1 with a linebacker. That’s 241 total yards on 17 touches for 6.5 yards a play.
Texas Tech receivers had 0 drops.
The offensive line did give up 6 quarterback hurries and the Oregon State defense had 2 sacks. That is something to work on, being just better with protection. There were many times that Morton had plenty of time, but that’s something that can be cleaned up.
Time of possession was 29 minutes for Oregon State and 31 minutes for Texas Tech.

9. Coach Comments.

No transcript from the official site.

10. Tortilla Tossin’ Players of the Game.

Behren Morton going 23 of 35 for 464, 4 touchdowns and an interception he’d like to have back. Completing 66% of his passes ain’t bad.

Brice Pollack with 2 interceptions and 6 tackles on the day, he had to be a good tackler in space because that’s the only way Oregon State could gain yards.

I’m not sure how to really credit the defensive line, but the 3 stars go to them. Hunter, Gill-Howard, Holmes, Bailey, Height, Cofield and anyone else who played there. They were dominant.