10 Things: Texas Tech 49, West Virginia 0

1. Game Links:

2. No Doubt. There was no doubt. No doubt that Texas Tech belongs and no doubt that TExas Tech is hte best team int he Big 12. It’s just not even close. In a way I have run out of superlatives and there’s not a ton to say. This was a dominant performance. I loved how good that Morton and Texas Tech was on 3rd downs this game, this team made plays yesterday. Another shut-out. 11 wins. Just incredible. I hope you are enjoying the ride.

3. Grades.

A	PASS OFFENSE
Morton was fantastic, 25 of 32 for 310 yards, 3 touchdowns, no interceptions. The receivers were outstanding and Terrance Carter Jr. was great. I thought he might have a big game. Lloyd Jones III actually got in the game after a Mitch Girffis injury (hope he’s okay) and he threw 2 touchdowns himself on just 5 passes. For fun, Morton had a rating of 190 and Jones was 336.
B+	RUN OFFENSE
This felt like there were numerous times where Texas Tech just didn’t gain any yards, but sack adjusted yards was 210 for the game and averaged 4.2 yards per carry, which is better than the stats look like (54 carries for 188 and 3.5 per carry). This was fine, but maybe not dominant.
A	PASS DEFENSE
How do you grade a defense when a team is simply not a great passing team? I may not be giving enough credit to West Virginia and not enough credit to Texas Tech, but WVU looked out of sorts from the get-go. WVU averaged 4.5 yards per attempt with no passing touchdowns. West Virginia had 1 drive where it appeared they were on their way and that ended in a Pollock interception.
A+	RUN DEFENSE
West Virginia had 54 adjsuted rushing yards for 3 yards a gain. Not exactly sure how many attempts that would be, but WVU had 0 rushing yards on 10 attempts at halftime. I’m sure some of that is sack related, but that’s ridiculous.
A	SPECIAL TEAMS
Burgess had to punt twice and both were inside the 20. Hudson returned 1 kickoff for 21 yards, which is fine. There were 3 punt returns for 17 yards, which at this point, they didn’t turn the ball over and Eakin has been replaced by J’Koby Williams I believe. No field goals attempted, but made all extra points.
A	COACHING
Going for it on 4th down early in the game seemed to set the tone, but that was maybe the biggest coaching decision of the game.

4. Boring. This may be the ultimate compliment, but by the 2nd half I was absolutely bored, especially after the 1st touchdown of the 2nd half. The game was over and I was looking for things to do, I’m sure I stretched, finished the Wyoming vs. Texas Tech preview and the game was on in the background. The best part was watching Micah Hudson and Lloyd Jones III complete touchdowns.

5. Dominating Defense. I feel as if I have used this superlative before, but for the day, Texas Tech’s defense had 9 tackles for a loss, 4 sacks, 2 interceptions, 2 pass break ups, and a forced fumble. In the 1st quarter WVU had 16 total yards. In the 2nd quarter WVU had 98 yards, and this is where they were threatening to score at the end of the half only to have Fox’s pass picked off. In the 3rd quarter, WVU had 29 total yards. In the 4th quarter, WVU had 37 yards.

6. Receivers Making Plays. This was a criticism earlier in the year and wanted to revisit this, which is that I thought that the receivers weren’t making plays and they were very much making plays yesterday. Carter was a real problem for WVU, they didn’t have anyone to cover him. Caleb Douglas was a tough cover for the Mountaineers. I didn’t realize this during the game, but for the day, Morton and Jones and the receivers accumulated 384 passing yards on the day with 5 touchdowns.

7. Stats.

Texas Tech was in passing downs 36%of the time compared to 48% for West Virginia.
Texas Tech had 15 big plays for 365 yards. That’s an explosive offense that wasn’t slowing down. Compared to WVU, they had 4 on the day and 3 of them were passing and 1 of them was running the ball. Texas Tech had 9 big passing plays for 245 yards and 6 for 12.
There were no red zone issues today, Texas Tech was 6 of 7 with 6 touchdowns. This seemed easy.
Texas Tech did have issues on 1st down, averaged only 3.7 yards on 1st down, while WVU averaged 5. On 3rd down, that was another thing, Texas Tech averaged 8 yards on 3rd down, which seemed like a lot, but converted 67% of those opportunities. And was especially impressive on 3rd and long where Texas Tech converted 6 of 9. West Virginia was 0-7 on those 3rd and long situations.
Texas Tech ran 55% of their plays on West Virginia’s side of the field. West Virginia ran just 22% of their plays on Texas Tech’s side of the field
West Virginia was absolutely going for it, they had 11 tackles for a loss, compared to 9 for Texas Tech. I don’t think that Texas Tech was really ready for some of those blitzes and that is something to work on as BYU approaches and think that the Cougars will look at how WVU attacked the Texas Tech offense.

8. Idle Thoughts.

That Trent Low disqualification was soft and I didn’t see an ejection being the result of that play. I thought it was weird that ESPN didn’t at all go back to the WVU player also being ejected. I have no idea what happened with that guy and why that happened. Thought this was a poorly called game and that’s regardless of the outcome.
The leading tacklers for the day was 4: Brendan Jordan; Jacob Rodriguez; David Bailey; and Jayden Cofield. Jordan’s pass interference was also not pass interference.
Lee Hunter was dominant yesterday. He had 3 tackles, and 2.5 of them were a tackle for a loss. AJ Holmes also finished with just 1 tackle, but thought he was really good, as was Cofield.
Caleb Douglas had 5 catches for 127 yards and 2 touchdowns. He did go out with an injury, but recall him on the field and he seemed okay.
The fake punt was, I think, Texas Tech simply doing their job. West Virginia didn’t line up correctly and Texas Tech did what they are supposed to do. I thought that the color commentator, Sam Acho, and his assessment was correct even though it was a bad look.
Romello Height led the team with 1.5 sacks and Dooda Banks and Cofield each had a sack. Good for them with Bailey out. I think we will have to consider how meaningful next week’s game actually is and how important it is for Bailey to play if he’s really banged up.

9. Coach Comments.

10. Tortilla Tossin’ Players of the Game.

Behren Morton looked fantastic, tough to criticize this game and Texas Tech needs a healthy Morton who was 25 of 32 for 310 and 3 touchdowns is exactly what you needed.

Caleb Douglas and Terrance Carter, Jr. get two tortillas. Douglas averaged 25.4 yards per catch and has the aforementioned 2 touchdowns. Carter nearly got his touchdown, but fell a yard short and had 10 catches for 98 yards and that’s 9.8 yards a catch.

Trying to pick just 1 defensive standout is tough, but feel like I need to highlight the defensive backs, Pollock had an interception and Boyd had a gift of an interception.