Who is ready for some stats? The bye week I like to take a look at things from last year to this year. Just to see where things are at. I basically used Sharp College Football for everything and I encourage you to go and much around with the site and look at things.

One thing that is not included in these graphs is 3rd down. I usually take a look at it for a game, but haven’t paid much attention over the course of the year. On offense, this year Texas Tech is 54th in the nation in 3rd down conversions, about 43%. Last year, Texas Tech was significantly better, 12th in the nation and 50% (technically it is 49.55%, but I round up a lot). For comparison purposes, the 54th team last year was converting 41% of third downs and 43% would be in the mid-30’s.

Defensively, it’s not significantly better, the 2026 version is 89th in the nation and allowing teams to convert at a 39% clip. Last year, the defense was 7th in the nation. If I could magically improve one thing on either side of the ball, this would be it. We’ve pointed out time and time again after games how the offense is in a very long distance on 3rd down and that’s been the biggest culprit, which leads us into the stats.

I normally just give you the graph, but these are the numbers behind the graphs. You can see that the offenses are comparable according to Sharp Football with the biggest distinction being drive efficiency and effective pass. That all checks out, especially the 3rd down stats.

Defensively, the Texas Tech defense was a once-in-a-lifetime thing and to compare it to anything else is probably not fair. However, both play efficiency and drive efficiency have slipped the most from last year. See that 3rd down stat above.

These FEI and FPI and QBR stats are all more high level, but do tell the story of 2025 and 2026 sufficiently. We know the offense wasn’t up to part in 2025 and has fallen in 2026 from where it was in 2025. The defense is comparable certainly. QBR is something where it is quarterback specific, so that ranking of 55 is Will Hammond’s ranking and 29 is Behren Morton. Morton’s first year as a starter he was 75th in the nation. I would say that this is what progress of a quarterback looks like and sometimes I think you have to stick with the growing pains.