10 Things: Arizona State 26, Texas Tech 22

1. Game Links:

Ed. Note: I was at a band competition in Waco all day on Saturday. Did not return until later in the evening and did not watch the game at all. Tried to follow via a gamecast, but that’s it. To add to this, I had to put one of my dogs down yesterday morning before I left for Waco, so emotionally a bad day punctuated by a loss. I know that this 10 Things is more about allowing you a place to comment rather than you caring too much about what I think. Thus, these 10 Things are based just off of stats. Plus, please provide your own grades (copy and paste into the comments):

Pass Offense:
Run Offense:
Pass Defense:
Run Defense:
Special Teams:
Coaching:

2. Hammond Isn’t Ready. I was a bit afraid about this, but Will Hammond may be ready by this time next year, but right now, he’s not there yet. A pretty terrible day passing the ball, in an offense that’s supposed to take advantage of the deep ball, that just didn’t happen on a consistent basis. Just 4.5 yards per pass attempt isn’t going to do it on any level, throw in an interception and this is what happens. This is also quarterback growing pains. I remember Graham Harrell having terrible games against teams like TCU and Missouri where the defenses gave him looks where he was just terrible, but he eventually learned from it and improved.

3. Grades.

INC	PASS OFFENSE
–
INC	RUN OFFENSE
–
INC	PASS DEFENSE
–
INC	RUN DEFENSE
–
INC	SPECIAL TEAMS
–
–	COACHING
–

4. Defense Caved at Inopportune Time. Down all game, the offense finally came alive and scored with about 2 minutes to go. The opportunity to stop and hold Arizona State wasn’t in the cards and after being held to just one touchdown thus far, they allowed Arizona State to march down in 10 plays and 75 yards eating up 1:26 of the clock

5. Failed 4th Downs Two failed 4th downs were absolute killers I think. Maybe the 1st one wasn’t so bad, it was in the first half, but prior to that, Texas Tech had punted 4 straight times and rather than take the points, McGuire decided to go for it on 4th and 6 from the Arizona State 36 yard line. At this point, it was only 6-0 in favor of the Sun Devils, so it seemed a bit strange to not just take the points when this appeared to be a game where field goals would be important.

The more important 4th down fail was at the start of the 4th quarter, Arizona State had scored a field goal to make it Arizona State 19, Texas Tech 7 and Texas Tech took the ball down all the way down to the Arizona State 9 yard line. I think after the game McGuire said he changed the play (not totally sure) and on 4th and 6 (after a time out, hence the possible change of play) it was a Cameron Dickey rush that went for a 1-yard loss that resulted in the turnover on downs. Now ultimately, Arizona State would get the ball back, drive a bit and have a punt blocked where Texas Tech would get the ball and score a touchdown. There’s no way to tell exactly how the game would have played out had Texas Tech gone after the points rather than go for it on 4th down, but it would have been 19-10 with 11:24 remaining.

6. Concerned Pass Defense. I’ve been concerned about the pass defense for a while now, I’ve felt like this is an issue. In a game where there were not a ton of penalties (5 total for Texas Tech), 3 of them were on the Texas Tech defense, two pass interference penalties and the Sun Devils had 6 big plays passing the ball: 19; 49; 19; 45; 23; and 33. That’s too many by a long shot and not to criticize the run defense as well, there were 4 big rushing plays, again, too many: 17; 14; 12; and 22.

7. Stats.

Texas Tech was 2 of 3 in the red zone, not enough opportunities and not enough time in Arizona State’s side of the field in scoring position. Meanwhile, Arizona State was 5 of 5 with just 23 points, but that was just enough.
The Texas Tech defense did give up just 2.1 yards a rush, but sack adjusted was 3.2. They did okay, but probably needed to be better.
Texas Tech went 6 of 16 on 3rd down, 38%, while Arizona state went 9 of 21, good for 43%. Not good enough on either front. The averaged distance for Texas Tech was 6.3 yards, not terrible, but not where you want to be, while Arizona State was 6.7.
Want something telling about the offensive line? Went 1 of 3 on 3rd and short (4 or less to go).
On 1st down, Texas Tech rushed the ball 11 times for 83 yards, while passed 14 time (completing 8) for 67. Not good enough passing the ball at all. Arizona State went 13 of 17 for 166 on 1st downs, which is just terrible. The defense did hold them to 22 yards on 16 attempts running the ball, but the pass defense was terrible.
Texas Tech has been good rushing the ball and I haven’t mentioned this statistic this year, but rushing success rate above 50 is average and anything below 40 is below average. Texas Tech’s offense was 32 and the offensive success rate was 28. Not a good day offensively.
Texas Tech was in passing downs 40% of the time. Again, not good and basically behind the sticks too much.

8. Idle Thoughts.

I mentioned before the game that the Texas Tech receivers would need to be special and they weren’t. Coy Eakin was maybe the best with a 30-yard touchdown, but just 5 catches for 66 yards isn’t going to cut it. Caleb Douglas had 4 for 19 and was targeted 8 times. Credit ASU’s defense for sure, but they have to be better.
Jack Burgess was very good punting the ball if we’re giving credit, 5 for 48 yards including 2 that were 50+ and 1 inside the 20.
Forced 3 fumbles, but didn’t recover any of them. That’s sometimes how this goes.
Cameron Dickey had 9 rushing attempts for 40 yards, 4.4 yards an attempt, while J’Koby had 3 for 22. That’s not enough (without seeing a single snap) and I don’t necessarily need to see Hammond lead the team with 15 for 47, just 3.1 average (not sack adjusted).
Terrence Carter went down with an ankle issue, came back, and then went down again with an ankle issue. Probably not good.
One additional stat? Texas Tech had 13 total yards in the 3rd quarter. Rushed 3 times for 13 yards, which means that Texas Tech didn’t complete a single pass and the lone interception happened here as well. Absolute disaster of a quarter.

9. Coach Comments.

Head Coach Joey McGuire’s Opening Statement:
“Well, hats off to Arizona State. I thought they played really well, especially defensively. I thought they were one of the better tackling teams. That’s what I said to Kenny after the game. I thought that was one of the better tackling defenses we have faced. They didn’t let a lot of extra yards go after contact or yards after catch, which we’ve been really good at this year. I thought they did a great job. We just missed on too many opportunities, early we were holding them to field goals, and then we just didn’t counter with any kind of scores. I hate it. I hate being in a locker room and feeling like I let the guys down, but the one thing I said to them is just like coming off a win, you’ve got to come back Sunday and look at the film and learn from it. We’ve got to do the same thing. It’s just a lot harder to do whenever you lose, and the big thing is our goal is to keep winning and earn our way into the Big 12 Championship, and that doesn’t change anything with the loss today. It just makes it a little bit more difficult, and we’ve got to fight our way back.”

On how he felt like he let the team down:
“I felt like we were ready to play. In the first half, they did a great job schematically with some deep balls to (WR Jaren Hamilton). So, looking at that and how we could adjust, I thought we did in the second half and limited some of that. That last long pass was more of a scramble, and we lost (WR Jordyn Tyson), which you can’t do. Offensively, going back and pushing the ball a little bit more downfield, we talked to Mack (Leftwich, Offensive Coordinator) about doing that. When we were down there and they stopped us on fourth down, we checked to a speed option and had a pretty decent play, and we thought we had it. That was on me, not Mack, and I’m really frustrated, not winning and not playing well enough to win. They played better than we did, and they played well enough to win.”

On if the game plan going in was tailored to QB Will Hammond’s strengths:
“We were trying to favor his strengths, trying to get him going early. I’m telling you, if you go back with all the teams that we’ve played up to this point, that’s a really good tackling defense. They do a good job of stopping the run, they did a good job today of limiting some runs. I thought they did a really good job of coming off blocks and limiting plays that you would think were four or five yard gains into two yard gains, and that was a big part of it. One thing — that quarterback (Sam Leavitt) changes everything. He’s a difference maker. He’s one of the best in the country, and he played really well today. He threw for 319 (yards), and I thought he did a good job with his feet whenever he needed to. I know everybody rallies around him, so they’re a different team whenever he’s playing and he’s back there. We just did not play well enough today to win the football game.”

10. Tortilla Tossin’ Players of the Game.

David Bailey did have a penalty for roughing the passer, but had 5 tackles, 2 sacks and 3 tackles for a loss.

Jacob Rodriguez and Ben Roberts had 12 and 13 tackles respectively.

Two good punt returns, Coy Eakin had 1 for 36 and Kelby Valsin had 1 for 21? J’Koby Williams had a kickoff return for 56 yards. Not sure at this point, sort of grasping for straws.