1. Game Links:
Game Recap
Stats
Highlights
2. It’s Not Your Underwear. It’s Not Your Hat. It’s not Your Shirt. There was a time when I sort of thought what I wore might bring me luck. I’d buy a new hat and think that maybe if I keep wearing the hat, the wins will continue to stack. Now obviously, I knew and know that this wasn’t true because I try to be a person of logic. I know what you know, that this is a really good football team with really good players. And they have significantly more good to great football players on defense than on offense and it’s really something to watch this team. If you’ve been wearing the same pair of drawers thinking that they have some magical ability, it’s not that. It’s this team and I don’t think I’ve ever seen anything like it.
3. Grades.
| C | PASS OFFENSE |
| Some of this is Behren Morton, but I am downgrading the pass offense because of some really inopportune penalties on the offensive line that put the offense in a bind and I thought the receivers were not good. The official stats say that there were only 2 drops, but I don’t feel that this was accurate and at end of the half that should have been a touchdown and I love going for it and making that call. The receivers need to make that play and I am pretty disappointed with their play the last handful of games, save Terrance Carter, Jr. | |
| B+ | RUN OFFENSE |
| Sort of have to adjust for the 4 sacks and the two running backs rushed 46 times for 198 yards and that’s good for 4.3 yards per attempt. To be fair, I think Morton had an actual running attempt that lost a yard. I love the running backs and they are absolutely devastating at times and I can’t imagine what this team would have been with Quinten Joyner. | |
| A | PASS DEFENSE |
| We’re going to dig into some good numbers shortly, but BYU had to resort to the pass in the 2nd half (they passed for 43 yards in the 1st half) and passed only for 145 yards on 17 of 27 for 145 yards, which is 5.4 yards per attempt. That’s not going to get it done. | |
| A+ | RUN DEFENSE |
| Suffocating. BYU only lost 5 yards from a sack, so 26 attempts for 72 yards is insane for a team that was rushing for 200 yards a game. Martin wasn’t fully healthy and you could tell. | |
| A | SPECIAL TEAMS |
| Punting, field goals, and coverage was elite. | |
| B | COACHING |
| I have no problem going for it at the end of the half and the offense has to get cleaned up, it’s the little things that are a problem. As far as the head coach, there weren’t a ton of decisions that he had to make that affected the game and thought the end of half decision was the biggest one. Lean on the defense. | |
4. BYU Gave Up in the 2nd Half. Let me explain. In the first half, BYU ran 10 times for 45 yards in the 1st quarter, then in the 2nd quarter, Texas Tech really started to tighten up and they ran 10 times for 18 yards. The second half was a different thing and they gave up because they realized that they couldn’t run the ball effectively or knew that they needed to pass the ball to push the ball down the field. The 3rd quarter was 4 rushes for 5 yards and in the 4th quarter they ran 3 times for -1 yard. That’s not a typo. BYU knew that they could not run the ball and their offensive line was just dominated and I don’t think that this was something they were expecting.
5. Offense Does Break Big Plays. I am frustrated by the offense, and it’s not the play calls, it is the receivers. Coy Eakin hasn’t made an impact in a handful of games and I think that I’m expecting more from them. Despite that, the offense does continue to make big plays, 5 passing big plays and 5 rushing big plays (in comparison, BYU had 4 total). Youssouf asked me what running back was better last week and I told him that I just didn’t know. They are both good in different ways and don’t know if this machine works well without the other.
6. Dominant Defense. BYU thought that the way that they were going to win was to not let David Bailey and Romello Height make plays. They chipped and they double-teamed them and I felt like this immediately played into the hands of Texas Tech. BYU isn’t an explosive offense and to send out 2 less receivers is great for the Texas Tech defense. It’s why Cole Wisniewski had such a great 1st half, he was just focused on stopping the run and I thought he was fantastic. And in the 2nd half, BYU knew that they had to throw the ball and were largely ineffective because Bailey and Height and Lee Hunter and Jacob Rodriguez were let loose because they were dropping back to pass and just had no time.
7. Stats.
- The official stats say that Texas Tech sacked BYU 1 time and had 3 quarterback hurries. I don’t know how counting stats work, but that’s not it. The real story wasn’t those stats.
- Texas Tech was really elite on 1st down, especially running the ball. Texas Tech averaged 6.2 yards on 1st down and limited BYU to 3.2 and running the ball it was 21 rushing attempts for 123 yards overall, while BYU tried to run 12 times and gained 26 yards. That’s a big part of the story.
- Despite those big 1st down gains, Texas Tech averaged 7.8 yards to go on 3rd down and BYU averaged 7.1. So maybe it’s a sack or a penalty or something, but there was a thing that was holding them back and despite being in bad spots, Texas Tech did convert 39% of those 3rd downs and that’s what kept the offense rolling.
- BYU converted 3 of 14 on 3rd down and that was their biggest problem on offense.
- BYU was in passing downs 45% of the time, which means that they were in passing downs quite a bit (2nd down with 8 to go or 3rd & 4th down with 5+ to go). In comparison, Texas Tech was 37%.
- 3 turnovers for BYU to 0 for Texas Tech.
8. Idle Thoughts.
- If you haven’t had time to listen to the post-game presser, Behren Morton said that the offense wasn’t good enough and was disappointed in their performance. I’m not writing this so that you don’t have issue with the offense, but to let you know that McGuire said the offense needs to be cleaned up and as did Morton. It feels as if the receivers aren’t really getting separation and I need them to make big catches.
- I thought this was maybe Brendan Jordan’s best game of his career. He was really good and it helps when BYU isn’t sending out a ton of receivers, but A+ from me. And on a team where you can get lost on who is playing well, I didn’t want that to go unnoticed.
- Stone Harrington is the place kicker and whatever competition was there is over. A perfect 5 of 5 including a 47-yarder. And I mentioned elite punting earlier and Jack Burgess averaged 53 yards a punt. He flipped fields regularly.
- 10 tackles, 2 tackles for a loss, 1 sack and 2 pass break-ups. If I told you that this was the combined stat line for David Bailey, Lee Hunter, and Romello Height you’d call me crazy, but that’s the difference in watching a game and what stats say. BYU could not block Height and Bailey and I can’t count the number of double-teams they had to face. And the reason why the BYU quarterback threw the pick was because of Hunter and Bailey.
- John Curry and Ben Roberts were also just so good yesterday. It’s tough to quantify what it means to have a team that tackles properly, but it is evident that they work on it.
- That personal foul call on Caleb Douglas was the most Charmin of calls I think I’ve ever seen.
9. Coach Comments.
10. Tortilla Tossin’ Players of the Game.
Cole Wisniewski’s 10 tackles and that one tackle where Bachmeier is attempting to hurdle him and Wisniewski doesn’t get caught up in that and just squarely tackles him to the ground. So good.
Stone Harrington and Jack Burgess split these 2 tortillas. Harrington’s 5 field goals are huge and Burgess having 2 punts inside the BYU 20 and 3 that were 50+. Huzzah to you both.
Jacob Rodriguez finished with 14 tackles, 1 tackle for a loss and a heck of an interception. I’m not in charge of his Heisman campaign, but he is truly an impactful and generational player.