1. Game Links:

Game Recap
Stats
Highlights

2. Dominant. In every respect. I thought of going with the word “Breathe” here, but they are not done quite yet. There is more hill to climb. The weird thing is that UCF wasn’t a bad defense, but they were yesterday. UCF was actually really good and this win was nothing short of dominant and over by halftime. It’s real and it is tangible. There was no let-down. There was no getting down by 30 points at halftime and needing to make a historic come back. When I do these 10 Things by this point in the season I am trying to cope with an unexpected loss and explain how you still need to have a positive attitude and spinning things in a way that makes you want to stick around. I’m not having to do that right now and it’s weird for me because I’ve been doing this for 20+ years.

3. Grades.

4. Rodriguez for Everything. Since I’ve been off of social media for the most part, I’m not really all that involved in campaigning for anything. The question as to whether or not Rodriguez deserves a Heisman invite seems silly, of course he does. The problem for Rodriguez is that he’s not a quarterback. The current odds according to Draft Kings have 3 non-quarterbacks on that list of 14 players are Notre Dame RB Jeremiyah Love, Ohio State WR Jeremiah Smith, and Texas Tech LB Jacob Rodriguez. It is obvious, and we’ve always known that this is a quarterback award. McGuire decidedly thumbed his nose at the Heisman committee by putting Rodriguez in at quarterback, Morton motions to the left leaving a lead blocker (I cannot tell who is blocking, is it #46 Tanner Allen or maybe #40 Wesley Smith?) and Rodriguez goes untouched. This was certainly intentional and intended to force those who vote to consider those who play the game and make plays and Rodriguez does that. He is 12th in the nation with 100 tackles (he’s sat out quite a bit because of blowouts), tied for 9th in the nation with 4 interceptions, tied for 21st in the nation with 10 passes defended, 1st in the nation with 7 forced fumbles, and tied for 52nd with 9.5 tackles for a loss. There is only one player who is maybe as impactful as Rodriguez and it is his teammate, David Bailey, who has 16 tackles for a loss, tied for 1st in the nation, and 12.5 sacks, which leads the nation. The pressure that Bailey puts on opposing offenses is insane and it is a beautiful thing to watch. Does Rodriguez deserve an invite to New York, yes, absolutely. He is arguably the best player on the #6 team in the nation and he doesn’t have the ball in his hands every single snap. He’s doing it in a completely different way and deserves the recognition.

5. Rolling Offense. It was better. By a long shot, it was better. Morton didn’t hold onto the ball and McGuire said after the game that they challenged Morton to not scramble and not take any sacks, which he did. The offense had 12 drives and had touchdowns in 6 of them, 2 punts, a safety (not totally sure it was a safety, but whatever), and the end of the game. The offense had 13 big plays, 7 passing for 168 yards and 6 rushing for 119 yards. You sort of don’t want the offense to have a week off, but I’m going to be happy that Williams and Morton get the week off to heal just a bit.

6. Putting it to the Knights. I was going to talk about this in the statistics portion, but Texas Tech allowed 4 total yards by UCF in the 1st quarter. That’s 6 rushing attempts for -3 yards and 3 for 3 for 7 yards passing. The 2nd quarter wasn’t much better, 66 total yards, 11 rushes for 15 yards, and 10 of 14 for 51 yards, including an interception. For the entire half, UCF had 70 total yards and was 1 of 8 on 3rd downs and they also held the ball for 17 of the 30 minutes in the 1st half. The Knights were dominated in the 1st half and they had no chance in the 2nd half. They were defeated when they went into the locker room.

7. Stats.

• UCF was in Texas Tech’s side of the field just 11% of their plays, while Texas Tech was in UCF’s side of the field 58% of the time.
• First downs. Dang. Texas Tech had 35 1st down plays and gained 300 yards, that’s good for 8.6 yards per 1st down. UCF had 24 and averaged 3.6. That will be a problem. Texas Tech had 4 1st down touchdowns.
• Texas Tech converted 62% of their 3rd downs, 8 for 13. The average down and distance was 7.3 yards, which seems improbable considering they averaged 8.6 yards on 1st down. Someone figure out the math for me on that. In any event, UCF only converted 30%, 4 of 13, and converted no 3rd and long, going 0 for 6.
• Texas Tech made UCF play offense the exact opposite the way they wanted to play. The Knights had 40 rush attempts to 60 pass attempts. The Texas Tech defense turned UCF into a largely inefficient passing team.
• Texas Tech went 5 for 6 in the red zone including 5 touchdowns. UCF was in the red zone just 1 time and scored a touchdown.
• Texas Tech had no drops from what I remember and none were recorded statistically.

8. Idle Thoughts.

• Behren Morton, J’Koby Williams, and Howard Sampson are all apparently okay. Morton was precautionary. Williams has a bad ankle. Sampson is going to have an MRI, possibly some patella tendinitis, but they don’t think it is a big deal.
• On the Virgil reverse, Caleb Douglas had a key block that let him go free and on the touchdown on the crossing route to Virgil, he’s tackled and Douglas is the first one to pick Virgil up and celebrate.
• Some defensive non-Rodriguez shout-outs: Ben Roberts with a TFL; John Curry with half a sack; Romello Height with a sack; Lee Hunter with a TFL; Dooda Banks with a sack; David Bailey with a sack; Jayden Cofield with half a sack and 1 TFL; AJ McCarty with a TFL; and Charles Esters with a QB hurry.
• Country music’s Haydon Wiginton, a captain for the game, had a catch for 3 yards.
• Speaking of captains, your captains for the game were Bryce Ramirez, Johncarlos Miller II (who Kenny Perry mentioned by name this week as being one of the toughest players on the team), Charales Esters III, and Wiginton. Probably says something about these seniors to have this honor.
• Between Reggie Virgil (107), Cameron Dickey (95), and J’Koby Williams (91), they had 293 all-purpose yards and 5 touchdowns.

9. Coach Comments.

10. Tortilla Tossin’ Players of the Game.

The legend of Jacob Rodriguez continues as he had 9 tackles, 1 interception and 1 pass break-up. Another dominant performance.

Behren Morton and Mitch Griffis were terrific and absolutely on-point yesterday. Morton was 14 of 20 for 149 and a touchdown, while Griffis was 13 of 17 for 145 yards with no drop-off when he entered the game.

Reggie Virgil gets 3 tortillas for his 3 touchdowns as Texas Tech needed a break-out game from their receivers and got it from Virgil. He had 72 yards receiving and a touchdown with 35 yards on 2 carries for 2 touchdowns.