10 Things: Texas Tech 43, Kansas State 20

1. Game Links:

2. Trusted the Defense. I was a bit concerned in the 4th quarter, the score 29-20 and I felt like Kansas State was feeling it, being at home and making moves and they were driving and scoring a touchdown. Texas Tech’s offense was sputtering a bit and had to punt from the 30-something yard line when maybe you kick a field goal. But head coach Joey McGuire trusted his defense, forced a turnover on downs, then Cameron Dickey fumbled the ball and my stomach sinks a bit. Then Texas Tech has to punt again (I think, it’s all blurring together).

And then the rain came down. Avery Johnson is harassed to the point where he can’t even breathe and they turn the ball over on downs. Texas Tech puts around on offense and then punts again. Then Johnson fumbles the ball away thanks to Romello Height, scooped up by John Curry and touchdown. Kansas State gets the ball back and then turns the ball over on downs again. Morton decides to just haul off and throw a touchdown to Caleb Douglas. There’s an Avery Johnson interception in there too by Ben Roberts.

McGuire allowed his defense to win a game and when I would have maybe pressed a bit, McGuire let the defense do their thing and a 9-point game ended up being a 23-point win. And it felt like it happened in a blink of an eye.

3. Grades.

B	PASS OFFENSE
The stats weren’t great, but I was quite happy with how Behren Morton played. That first quarter pick was a weird forced play, but I think I was pretty happy otherwise. Morton completed 66% of his passes and 7.7 yards per attempt, not great but fine.
B+	RUN OFFENSE
I am firmly in the camp that Morton makes the run offense better. the offense had 187 net rushing yards for 4.3 yards per rush, but sack adjusted, Texas Tech averaged 5 yards a run. (Morton lost a ton of yards on that sack on 4th down in the 1st quarter).
A	PASS DEFENSE
I’m still concerned about the big plays, Kansas State had 3 for a total of 122 total yards. But the Wildcats only completed 48% of their passes for 199 yards and of the 16 completions, 13 of them went for 78 yards. That’s very low mileage. Add in 2 interceptions and it was a long day for Johnson.
B+	RUN DEFENSE
The plan was to run Johnson, and that did work, he had 15 for 88 yards and 2 touchdowns. He’s always been tough to stop, but there was no production from the running backs, a total of 15 carries for 38 yards for the running backs. That’s not going to fly.
B	SPECIAL TEAMS
I don’t have a ton to complain about here. Burgess didn’t average a ton on his punts, but he was asked to pin the ball a couple of times, which he did. A couple of kick returns were fine. Harrington made all 3 field goal attempts (he also missed an extra point). From a coverage standpoint, there were no kickoff returns and no punt returns for K-State.
A	COACHING
It wasn’t perfect, but I enjoyed the hell out of that game. A rough start in that 1st quarter, but after that, Texas Tech ramped it up in the 2nd, 3rd and 4th quarter.

4. Take 5 (or 6). The turnovers is something that’s just not normal and when it happens in bunches, it’s not an accident. There are players that are absolutely terrific at creating them and Jacob Rodriguez is one of those players. And that type of play is contagious. Texas Tech had 5 turnovers and maybe six on that one in the 1st quarter. Oh, and Texas Tech had 20 points off of turnovers and Kansas State had 0, the Wildcats were never able to capitalize on Texas Tech’s 2 mistakes. Again, credit the defense.

5. You Should Always Read Game Day Links. A little self-promotion, but in the Kansas State Game Day Links, ESPN’s Pamela Maldonado had the following:

Then there’s the trench gap. Texas Tech has the best run defense in the country and the third-best pass rush, generating the fifth-most sacks and the most total pressures by a wide margin. Kansas State, meanwhile, bottom tier, 89th against the run and 108th in pressure rate. That’s where this flips.

Avery Johnson completes 68% of his passes when clean, but just 42% under pressure. Against this front, he’ll be running for his life while Tech attacks from every angle. Tech’s defense contains dual-threat QBs because they win inside and off the edge. Johnson’s legs keep him alive, not ahead and against this unit, survival won’t be enough.

Texas Tech is faster, deeper and better in both trenches. The number reflects it, and Morton’s return stretches the gap. K-State’s resurgence acknowledged. Supremacy unchanged.

That middle paragraph quoted was absolutely correct and Avery Johnson under pressure was pretty terrible.

The work done by Romello Height, David Bailey, Lee Hunter (who else wants to know what Hunter said to Avery Johnson?), Anthony Holmes, David Bailey, Jacob Rodriguez and anyone else associated with putting pressure on the quarterback. The stats for the day? Just 2 sacks and 4 quarterback hurries along with 2 picks and 4 passes broken up. Doesn’t seem like enough does it.

6. The Offense is What? 249 passing and 187 rushing. 42 running plays and 32 passing plays. It certainly wasn’t perfect, as mentioned above, but I also think it was better than it has been the last 2 weeks. I like the ability to run the ball and 187 rushing yards is nothing to sneeze at. Not only that, but Texas Tech had 5 running and passing big plays (each) and that big strike offense is what opens everything up. Morton completed 5 of his passes for 155 passing yards (30, 42, 38, 26, and 19) and the running backs had 5 carries for 118 yards (17, 16, 41, 10, and 34). I thought the receivers could have been slightly better, all 3 starters had at least 2 pass I think they should have caught. It also helps to have Terrance Carter, Jr. back. He’s a huge match-up problem.

7. Stats.

Texas Tech completed just 7 of 17 on 3rd down, good for 41%. Kansas State was slightly better, 7 of 15 for 47%. Texas Tech only converted 3 of 6 on 3rd and short and that’s pretty rare, but maybe still speaks to a few issues with the line getting on blocks.
Texas Tech only spent 36% of their plays in passing downs compared to 49% for Kansas State. They were having to pass a ton in the 2nd half.
Texas Tech ran 57% of their plays from Kansas State’s side of the field compared to 25% for the Wildcats.
Average 1st down gains? Texas Tech 5.6 and Kansas State 2.9.
Kansas State struggled passing the ball deep, 5 of 15 in medium (5-14 yards) and 2 of 5 deep. Meanwhile, Morton was 8 of 12 in medium throws and 2 of 6 deep.
When I watched, I felt like it was a ton of penalties, but it was just 4 overall, a holding on Sampson that was declined, but 3 false starts and Reggie Virgil was lined up offsides.

8. Idle Thoughts.

I always find it weird when a team has a lot of tackles and another team doesn’t. K-State had 68 tackles and Texas Tech had just 41.
I don’t know how to pick who the best defensive player was yesterday. Yes, Rodriguez, but Ben Roberts had a day. I thought Cole Wisniewski had a terrific day and saved a touchdown. Brice Pollock was fantastic. Ameir Boyd is starting to feel it. Anthony Holmes is is as good as the starters. I don’t know how to pick.
I thought that Cam Dickey wasn’t running through the hole, but I also think that there were a handful of times that Dickey just didn’t have a hole to run through.. He finished with 21 carries for 68 yards and a touchdown. J’Koby was able to rip off 3 of the 5 big rushing plays and had 17 carries for 135 and a touchdown. The touchdown was pinball like.
From 7:21 left in the 1st quarter to the end of the 1st half, Morton was 10 of 12 passing the ball and was absolutely feeling it. Morton was 5 for 8 for 68 yards (which I think is Douglas’ side) on middle throws to the right and 2 for 2 on middle throws to the left.
Terrance Carter, Jr. and Johncarlos Miller may not be the best blockers, but they do seem to give supreme effort in trying to block, which I appreciate significantly. They are oftentimes the point people in terms of the rushing attack. Carter is a truly unique player, his lower half is thicccc.
I am pretty sure that Cash Cleveland didn’t get the start at left guard, but played a lot there.

9. Coach Comments.

Opening Statement…

“Well first, I know y’all know this is no disrespect to K-State, it’s a tip of the hat to my Athletic Director [Kirby Hocutt], who played linebacker here, and it’s been a long time since we’ve beaten Kansas State. I don’t know if we’ve done it, since you’ve been the Athletic Director. I know it was a big win for him, and I know it’s a huge win for this team. I think Coach [Chris] Klieman is in the top five to 10 coaches in the country, and that was a huge win. I remember our first year when they beat us here. I told him after the game– you know, I’m trying to create a culture that you have here at K-State, of a tough football team that plays at a high level. Four years later, we did a great job today of being a tough football team that played at a really high level.”

On Jacob Rodriguez’s performance…

“Man, you know, he’s incredible. There was a challenge coming into the game, K-State, I think in the last two games, they created seven or eight turnovers, and they’re one or two in the country [creating turnovers]. They were plus nine coming in on turnover margin. We really challenged our guys. From the standpoint we hang our hat on, we do that every day in practice, every single play. I mean if you don’t, then guys are calling you out. Jacob Rodriguez took that to heart. He wanted to come out and really prove what kind of linebacker he is. He knew he was across the field from another great linebacker, their number 45 [Austin Romaine] is really special and he just keeps doing what he does. He’s got a knack at a different level than I’ve ever been around as far as timing and punching the ball out.”

On College Gameday coming to Lubbock…

“Yeah, that’s awesome. I think the biggest thing we have to focus on is ourselves. We talk about it all the time, you know, it’s a big game because we’re in it, that’s the last thing. If I say that, they’re all going to say it’s a big game because we’re in it. I think it’s really important to understand that if you let all of the hype and everything surrounding, and not being the brand, playing the player, coaches oath and making it about football–then you’re going to miss a great opportunity on a huge stage and so I think that’s what we’ll do. We’ll turn around. I told [our players] that I thought that College Game Day would be at Lubbock if we won this game. At the end of this, they didn’t know it until after the game, but now we know it’s going to be exciting, and it’s against a great football team. [BYU head coach] Kalani [Sitake] is one of my favorite guys. What he’s done this year is absolutely amazing, losing a quarterback and then bringing in a freshman quarterback and playing at such a high level. I can’t wait to see my buddy, and it’ll be two really good football teams going at each other.”

10. Tortilla Tossin’ Players of the Game.

Can I just give this to the entire defense? Yes I can because I’m in charge.

I am really glad that Behren Morton is back. He makes this offense hum. Morton gets 2 tortillas.

Going completely off-script. As you may know, my son Fitsum is part of the Kaufman High School Band and they competed in Area C yesterday with the hopes of getting to State. Kaufman is a pretty small school in class 5A and to compete with some of these bigger schools is pretty amazing. Not only that, Fitsum struggled with the steps early in the season (enough where the band director asked me if I could help) and we spent countless hours at the grid (that’s what they call where they practice) where I’m playing the music on my phone and we go through the steps again, and again, and again, and again until he gets it perfect. That’s extra hours on top of the hours that they just pour into being the absolute best they can be. After prelims at 3:00 pm yesterday they were 3rd and ended up finishing 2nd overall (the top 4 teams go to state in our area). Last night, they got home at 2:00 a.m. (technically it was 1:00 a.m. as the clocks kicked back). The celebration on the field was terrific and something I’ll remember forever. The pride in his hug was something. I could not be more proud of Fitsum and the Kaufman High School Band. They get 3 tortillas.