The Assignment

Good Guys: Texas Tech Red Raiders (4-0, 1-0)
Bad Guys: Houston Cougars (4-0, 1-0)
Where: TDECU Stadium | Houston, Texas
When: Saturday, October 4th @ 6:00 pm
TV & Streaming: ESPN
Radio: The Varsity Network
The Line: Texas Tech -11.5
Game Notes: Texas Tech | Houston
Weather Report: Sunny, High 91, Low 74

Willie Fritz has been one of the best college coaches since the mid 1990’s when he started his head coaching career at Blinn where he went 39-5-1 before starting at Central Missouri. Fritz is 216-124 overall, excluding those JUCO years. Fritz has implemented his “Plan To Win”, which was inspired by Don James and includes playing with effort and discipline, consistency, take care of the football, controlling the running game, and special teams focus.

Slade Nagle is the offensive coordinator and was at Tulane with Fritz. Nagle has focused on the tight ends taking parts from prior coordinators he worked for:

“With the run game I’ve probably taken a lot from what Will did as far as packaging plays together and being able to double call plays and stuff like that,” said Nagle. “Some of the tempo things, the being able to play fast that Will and Chip (Long) did and then to be honest my overall philosophy stems more from my younger days coaching under Viatar and Scott Stoker, just being a tough, hard-nosed offense that tries to play physical. Doug Ruse as well, he’s very similar to those guys.”

Ruse led the offense from 2016-2018, Hall from 2019-2020 and Long for a short stint in 2021. First it was physical, then it was fast and now under offensive coordinator Jim Svboda it’s complete, ranking 21st in scoring offense with an average of 35.3 points per game, 19th in rushing touchdowns with 30 and 10th in pass efficiency.

Defensive coordinator Austin Armstrong was at Florida the previous 2 years and prior to that he was at Southern Miss for a couple of years as well. Armstrong is a multiple sort of guy, which is pretty normal now and is key on putting pressure on the quarterback.

The News:

Non-transcript of head coach Joey McGuire.

• Had a good bye week. Ready to get back. Practiced in shells yesterday.
• Scout team players of the Week: Charles Anderson on defense and Jackson Hildebrand on offense.
• Excited to go to Houston. Big game for the Big 12. Both teams are playing well on the defensive side of the ball. Coaching one of the best coaches, he’s won at every level he’s at. Big fan, have some good friends on that staff. Expect a sold-out crowd and hope half of that crowd are Red Raiders.
• Not worried about a trap game, they are 4-0, defensively they have done a good job stopping the run. They create turnovers. On the offensive side of the ball, they have one of the best tight ends in the country. Lot of character in coming back against Oregon State. Quarterback is playing well, do some QB design runs and extends plays with his feet. They are 4-0 for a reason. Willie Fritz does a good job.
• Just trying to go 1-0 this week. This is a veteran group, Coach Martin, met with the 3 captains and they are really dialed in, Behren, Bryce and J-Rod. I liked the way we practiced yesterday.
• We haven’t been close to a complete game. Got to do a better job of penalties, one of the most penalized in the country. The pre-snap kills me. Need to get past that and until we do, not a complete game.
• Behren looked great yesterday. Got a video Friday morning and was throwing with Mike Ramirez and a video of him sliding. He was a full participant. Did have a scout period. He looked good yesterday.
• We spent all week working our silent count and perfecting that. Will play in a hostile environment, Arizona State will be loud, K-State is a great environment. Continue to take the ball away, punching at the ball and creating turnovers. Offensively, keep getting better at running the football.
• Was just difficult to communicate. We motion and change the look for defenses and need to have a better pace so the offensive line is not sitting in their stance so long.
• We’ll have the silent count ready. I hope they’ll need it too. When we walked off our bus for the bowl game, I had never seen so many Texas Tech fans on the road. SaRoderick and Behren said it was like a home game.
• Gives us some stuff to look at, it is a good game to watch, they got down in a hurry. Shows a lot. They have a tight team and they came back on the road says a lot about them, they blocked 2 field goals. Oregon State had to come here, they went there. Oregon State has lost 2 games due to special teams and those are tough losses.
• It makes a big difference where teams wish they had Will Hammond. Indiana probably wishes they had Hammond. We are fortunate. If Will’s Helmet would have come off, Mitch would have been there. I hope we get to dictate when those guys go in.
• They stop the run and get you in 3rd and long and pressure you. #5 and #18 are really good football players. They have 2 corners that are really good. They will have to play well. We have to be able to run the football, and don’t want them to go to their 3rd down package.
• There are a couple of guys we’re getting back, Cash Cleveland and practiced all last week, same as Ellis Davis. This is as healthy as we’ve been since going into camp. Good week to have off. TC has been banged up and he feels good. The old guys practiced a little and ran a lot to stay in shape.
• You’ll have to wait until Saturday. We are fortunate that we have a lot of things that we can do with personnel and at some point we may have to.
• Stone is such a great story and great Red Raider, proud of him. Going to have to kick it into the endzone, they have a great returner.
• Burgess is kicking the ball really well, he’s leaner and stronger. Be ready to go when your number is called, he’s come out and punted the ball really well. He had a great camp. I’d love for them to get the 5 for 5 out of the way and take him back for another year.
• I can get you the list of multi-year contracts, maybe 7 or 8 guys and another handful to add another year to their contract.
• I think some of it is how you are playing right now, which is crazy, if they are playing well or not playing well. There are some mid-October that will be based on how they are playing. Also taking a chance with injuries, but if you get hurt you lose your value.
• Shiel Wood and Rob Greene at Houston last year, joked to Shiel to not make this about you. Because of the vets, we just make this about football. Let’s don’t make it about Houston and let’s make it about how good we can be.

Texas Tech football will play Kansas at Jones AT&T Stadium on Saturday, October 11th with kickoff set for 6:30 p.m. on FOX.

Education: This week’s education is every defensive formation explained in 12 minutes.

Stock Up:

• The Texas Tech offense is 13th in points per play, .603, and the defense is holding opponents to .188, which is good for 11th in the nation. Those are both pretty good metrics for determining how good an offense or defense actually is.
• Similarly, on 3rd downs, the Texas Tech offense is 13th, good for 53.33% conversion rate, and the defense is holding opponents to 29.89%, which is 24th. I think that’s something on defense that can improve.
• The Texas Tech defense is stifling against the run thus far, allowing 2.0 yards per rush, 2nd in the nation, allowing 57.3 yards a game, which is 6th in the nation.
• Texas Tech’s offense is 6th in the nation in yards per pass and 2nd in the nation in passing yards per game. One other good note is that the Texas Tech’s sack rate is 8th in the nation.

Stock Down:

• It’s difficult to think of things that need to get worked out when things are working so well. I’m being picky, but here we go. The Texas Tech defense is allowing opponents to convert 43% of 4th downs, which seems really high. I am sure that’s a small sample size, but it is something.
• I would have also guessed that the defense was holding opponents to a low rate on 3rd downs, but they are allowing 29% which is not a rate I would have guessed and that’s still good for 24th in the nation.
• I’d love to see the running game improve a bit. Right now the yards per rush is 4.0, good for 79th in the nation.
• Penalties is a big one. Right now, Texas Tech is 127th in penalties per game, nearly 9.3 and 79.3 yards a game. That is a point of emphasis and I know that the Utah game caused a lot of issues, but that has to be fixed and would guess that they’ve worked on a silent snap count on the off-week.

Upset Alert: We are finding out a bit about the Big 12 and depending on who you are, you tend to think that things are settling a bit. Arizona State managed a pretty good comeback against TCU and Iowa State hammered Arizona. Both of those wins were at home for each winner.

The real upsets or near-upsets though were nationally and teams that were supposed to be great, like Florida State, lost to an upstart Virginia team on the road. LSU lost on the road to a very good Ole Miss team, while Georgia Tech needed overtime to beat a mediocre Wake Forest team on the road, and USC, while probably not necessarily an upset, lost to Illinois on the road. All of those teams that were ranked or ranked ahead of their opponent were on the road. Funny things can happen on the road and if you aren’t completely focused at the task at hand, then you too will be ripe for an upset.

Injury Boost: Head coach Joey McGuire has said that there’s going to be some guys who had some football injuries and this gives them a week to be healthy. I’ll be interested to see who makes the availability report this week. McGuire has mentioned Cash Cleveland getting healthy and we know that E’Maurion Banks was not playing in the Utah game because of the birth of his child. All of the players listed as probable actually played. This was the report prior to the Utah game:

OUT
CB #23 Tarrion Grant
OL #52 Cash Cleveland
OL #53 Holton Hendrix

DOUBTFUL
DL #8 E’Maurion Banks
WR #18 Roy Alexander
DL #88 Amier Washington

QUESTIONABLE
CB #4 Maurion Horn
OLB #11 Charles Esters III
OL #57 Hunter Zambrano

PROBABLE
TE #7 Terrance Carter Jr.
OLB #9 Romello Height
LB #13 Ben Roberts
S #15 Oliver Miles III
S #22 Marcus Ramon-Edwards