10 Things: Texas Tech 34, Utah 10

1. Game Links:

2. So Many Good Things. So Many Things to Work On. Do you know that you’re good when you acknowledge that the win was a really good win, but also acknowledge in the same breath also acknowledge that Texas Tech has a lot of things to work on and be better at. We’ll get to those things to work on a bit later, I think it’s great to bask a bit in the sun of a win and you should do that.

I have to be honest in that in my life, I just don’t have time to be online and know what a fanbase is saying. I actually think that’s a good thing, not to be online as much, but to think about the game at hand and not get caught up in the noise. The noise is really just that. When I watched Utah it was clear to me that up and down the roster, Texas Tech had better players. They had better skill players and better defensive players and ultimately, that would be the difference in the game. I was right about that and I think that was the difference in the game. As good as the Utah defense is, Texas Tech’s was better and Utah simply didn’t have any dynamic offensive players other than Dampier. Shiel Wood knew that and made sure that Dampier wouldn’t beat Texas Tech. It doesn’t help Utah in knowing that Dampier simply can’t throw the ball down field, that’s just not what he does.

3. Grades.

B	PASS OFFENSE
First half, things were a bit rough and I should be very clear that much of the problems with the 1st half offense was penalties and consistently putting the offense in a bad position. We’ll get to the penalties a bit later, but Behren Morton was a bit off despite having to play behind the sticks. His two interceptions were short and they should have been better throws. When Will Hammond arrived in the 2nd half, the numbers weren’t that much better, but they were more impactful. 1st half: 12 of 19 for 142 and 2 INT. 2nd half: 13 of 16 for 169 and 2 TD.
A	RUN OFFENSE
I think I want to say how lucky Texas Tech is to have Cameron Dickey and J’Koby Williams. Total yards from them, 201 total, which was 67 rushing and 12 receiving from Dickey and 43 rushing and 71 receiving from Williams. We’re going to get into the why in a minute, but you could tell that Mack Leftwich wanted the quarterback to run and Will Hammond is simply a better runner than Morton. Hammond ended up with 61 yards, which gave the rushing offense 173 on 37 carries for 4.7 yards a rush. That will play.
B	PASS DEFENSE
Devon Dampier is not a good passer. We talk about how you can’t judge the performance of a team if the quarterback or offensive line just isn’t very good. Dampier is a terrific runner, but I think you all can tell that he’s not adept at passing the ball. Even with that caveat, Utah averaged 4.2 yards per attempt. I think I said before the game that you could count the deep balls that Dampier threw in the last game on one hand and that applied today. That’s not what Dampier does. Thus, I’d say they did exactly what they were supposed to do, but were not necessarily tested.
A+	RUN DEFENSE
It is ridiculously clear to me that the defensive line and front 7 overall are the most dominant in Texas Tech history. That’s not hyperbole, that’s the capital “t” TRUTH. That renowned Utah rushing game averaged 3.3 yards a rush on 31 rushing attempts. Utah eventually had to give up on the run because they were falling behind and they are not made to do that. Regardless, Utah had no where to run the entire game.
B	SPECIAL TEAMS
I almost went with a B- here, there was virtually no return game at all on the punt returns and that was disappointing, especially when there 7 different punts to field. I am giving credit to Utah because they are just good at that sort of thing. But add in a 58-yarder and a 25-yarder from Stone Harrington, plus the punting was outstanding. Jack Burgess nailed 5 of 6 inside the 20-yard line, that’s ridiculously impressive and getting that one punt down at the 1 was huge.
A	COACHING
Not a ton of tough decision for McGuire this game either. Maybe the most excruciating part of the game was trusting the defense to step up every single time that Texas Tech punted the ball. Maybe they were confident that the offense was eventually going to break through. I’d add that trusting a side of your team that much is coaching. He could have risked it a couple of times and gone for it, but he didn’t and I think he knows he has a better team so he doesn’t have to be as risky to get a win.

4. Dominant Front. We have said it all year and we might say it for a few more games. The defensive front 7 is dominant, flat out dominant. Want to Dig a little deeper? You won’t find a defensive lineman show up on the stat sheet until Skyler Gill-Howard shows up with 3, David Bailey with 3, Anthony Holmes with 3, Lee Hunter with 2 tackles, Terrell Tilmon with 2, and Romello Height with 1. If you think the number of tackles is indicative as to how impactful that group was then I don’t know what to tell you. They wanted to show those projected NFL 1st round picks that they’re just as good, maybe even better than them. They were immovable objects. Then when the defensive line held form, the linebackers absolutely feasted, Jacob Rodriguez had 11 tackles, John Curry had 7, Ben Roberts with 6.

Stat of the day. Utah only ran 14% of their plays on Texas Tech’s side of the field.

5. Using Utah’s Rush. I think that the adjustment that was made in the 2nd half was the intentional quarterback run right up the middle. Utah was absolutely sending the defensive ends whenever Texas Tech would drop back to pass and I think, the thought was to drop back and then take it up the middle on a quarterback run, which would slow the rush, which would give the quarterback more time. There’s no doubt that Hammond is a better runner than Morton and Hammond being able to take advantage of that. When all of this happened, you’ll notice that everything opened up, from the running backs and receivers. Make no mistake, Hammond threw some absolute darts and Douglas and Virgil (mostly Douglas I think) made some spectacular catches.

6. Morton’s Rough Day. I do think that Morton just wasn’t right. I’m not sure what it was, maybe it was the constant penalties he was having to deal with and constantly having to work behind the sticks. I’m not sure. The two picks were underthrown, I think Joel Klatt was right about that. But besides that, the hit that eventually knocked out Morton was a very poor decision by Morton, not to slide and given that he was shaken up by the hit from #90 earlier, I can’t figure out why he’d take that hit the way that he did. It was just a bad decision and it doesn’t make any sense. I’d also add that I don’t think there’s going to be a change at quarterback. Hammond is there in case of emergency and I think the team believes in Morton and Hammond. You may believe that a change needs to be made, and that’s fine, but I don’t think the team is there.

7. Stats.

39% of Texas Tech’s downs were passing downs, which means that they were running quite well and staying ahead of 3rd downs.
Texas Tech had 14 big plays, plays of 15+ yards, for 320 yards. Utah had 1 for 44. That’s a pretty big deal.
Prior to this game, Utah was suffocating on 3rd downs, allowing just 22%, and Texas Tech ended up converting 53% of 3rd downs. The tough part was that the average down and distance was 9.8, which is a huge number, but converted 3 of 7 3rd and long, and 3 of 4 3rd and short.
3rd down passing for Texas Tech? 12 of 13 for 208 yards. That’s pretty insane.
Deep passing for both teams? Texas Tech was 4 of 7 and Utah was 0-6.
Sack adjusted yards per rush? Texas Tech was 5.3 and Utah was 3.7. Texas Tech dominated that line. Sack adjusted yards per pass attempt? Texas Tech 8.3 and Utah 3.9. Dampier just can’t throw the ball.
Texas Tech had 9 of their 14 penalties in the first half for 88 yards. 4 for 40 in the 1st quarter and 5 for 48 in the 2nd. All of those penalties were killers. There were 4 penalties for 27 yards in the 3rd quarter and by the 4th quarter it was 1 for 7. It’s no mistake that the Texas Tech offense exploded once that happened, 224 yards in the 4th quarter alone. That’s more than the 1st half. I also want to be clear in that 3 of the 14 penalties were against the defense and 2 were special team penalties, the catch interference and the roughing the kicker.

8. Idle Thoughts.

Want to give credit to both Ben Roberts and Jacob Rodriguez for knocking out the ball on separate occasions.
The defensive ends were never going to have “great” games for this game because Dampier was either going to take off and run or get rid of the ball really quickly. It’s a short passing game for Utah. Their stats won’t show up that much, but they did their job.
The offense had no drops. Overall the numbers were 25 of 35 for 311 yards passing, which is good for 71% catch rate. highest targets were Terrence Carter who had 10 and caught 7 for 49, Reggie Virgil had 9 for 6 and 72 yards. Caleb Douglas had 7 for 4 and 68 yards. A little surprised that Eakin only had 4 targets, but I think that combo player was a tough cover for him, but with that player covering Eakin, I think Leftwich knew that they didn’t have someone that could really cover Carter.
Texas Tech had 0 quarterback hurries and just 1 sack. I think that again speaks to how quickly Dampier was getting rid of the ball.
All 4 turnovers were daggers to a Utah offense that was struggling. For the game, Utah only had 263 total yards and in the 3rd quarter alone only had 26 yards and was 0-3 for 3rd downs and Dampier was 3 of 7 for 12 yards. Things weren’t much better in the 2nd quarter where the defense allowed just 71 yards and they just ran up against a brick wall.
Maybe the best game I’ve seen from Brice Pollack who had 1 interception, 6 tackles, and half a tackle for a loss.
Cam Dickey and J’Koby Williams are such different backs and it’s a pretty terrific look. If I were to ask you who averaged more yards per carry, I’d probably almost always side with J’Koby, but Cam had 13 carries for 67 yards and 5.2 yards a carry, while J’Koby had 11 for 43 and 3.9. I love the fact that they are threats out of the backfield, I think that adds an entirely new level to the offense. They are threats.
I didn’t talk about the penalties, but that needs to be discussed. Of the 9 against the offense, 7 of them were false starts. McGuire said after the game that they didn’t have a silent count implemented and I guess underestimated how loud it would be. That’s probably on Leftwich more than anything, to not have that in your bag to fix.

9. Coach Comments.

No transcript from the official site.

10. Tortilla Tossin’ Players of the Game.

Will Hammond was electric, 13 of 16 for 169 and 2 touchdowns to go along with 8 rushes for 61 yards. Utah didn’t know what to do with him.

Lee Hunter, Skyler Gill-Howard, Anthony Holmes, David Bailey, Romello Height, and Terrell Tilmon share in this. Again, stats didn’t tell much of anything, but they deserve a ton of credit here. Texas Tech doesn’t win this game without them dominating the line of scrimmage.

Jacob Rodriguez, Cole Wisniewski, John Curry, Brendan Jordan and Ben Roberts were also fantastic and I’m probably not including someone that should. Rodriguez led the team with 11 tackles, .5 TFL, 1 interception and 1 forced fumble. I don’t know how you can be any more impactful. Wisniewski had 8 tackles and a questionable PI call against him. Curry and Jordan each had 7 tackles. Roberts had 6 tackles a pass break-up and a forced fumble.