10 Things: Texas Tech 53, West Virginia 48

1. Game Links:

2. Grades.

A	PASS OFFENSE
I am doing these meaningless grades as a totality and Thomas Castellanos was generally fantastic. A 67% completion rate for 362 yards and 13 yards per attempt is insane with 5 touchdowns. The receivers stepped up and this is the first game that it felt like a collective effort rather than just one guy making the play.
A	RUN OFFENSE
Again, it is incredibly difficult to complain about 276 yards rushing on 53 attempts for 5.2 yards a rush, it is actually 6 if you adjust for sacks, and may have out-rushed the vaunted West Virginia rushing offense is something.
F	PASS DEFENSE
The zone pass defense was atrocious, it seemed like in that hand-off spot from the linebackers to the safety was the weak spot for the Texas Tech defense and and Hawkins was 11 of 16 for 312 yards.
D-	RUN DEFENSE
I am teetering on the edge of giving this a failing grade too. I don’t know that I can actually justify it if you asked me, but you sort of knew that West Virginia that was going to be able to run the ball and they did it relatively successfully. I felt the rush defense played slightly better, maybe that’s the only very weak justification I have.
B	COACHING
A cumulative grade, an offense that I think over-performed based what it has done all year, a defense that underperformed, and a special teams that had issues. But to go for it on 4th down to try to win the game means something to me, the offense scored 10 points go go ahead, and the defense held in the 4th quarter, 2 punts, over on downs and a safety.

3. Sheesh. Based on how the game was going, that’s not the way the game was supposed to end. It should have ended with another West Virginia drive down the field against a Texas Tech zone defense that gets shredded. That’s not how it ended at all. The defense stood up. And of course it had to stand up because on 4th and 2, the Texas Tech offense and Castellanos didn’t get the 1st down. It looked like a 1st down to me, but the camera angle that we are at didn’t get a clean look for me and looking at a play diagonally is always weird. In any event, I appreciated going for it. Trying to win the game and put West Virginia on their heels and even though it was risky to put the defense back out there, going up 6 with a defense that has been shredded all night long isn’t a bad plan.

4. Injuries. Coy Eakin, Cameron Dickey, Quinten Joyner, all were injured. Eakin has a broken had and will be out for multiple weeks. Dickey tweaked that bum ankle, but should be okay. Joyner also tweaked an ankle. Obviously it is not good to be at full power

5. Winning the 4th Quarter. Without question, this is where the game was won. The West Virginia offense had -6 yards, 1 completed pass for 8 yards, 8 rushing attempts for -14 yards, 0-3 on 3rd down, 0-1 on 4th down, and a safety. That’s huge. And that’s not just a drive or 2 drives, that’s 4 drives where West Virginia just couldn’t get out of their own way offensively. I honestly think that West Virginia made a huge mistake when they didn’t go for it on 4th and 1 with 7 minutes left on the clock, yes they were on their own 34 yard line. That decision led to a Texas Tech touchdown, including a huge 26-yard catch to Hudson on 4th and 3. Another example of Texas Tech knowing that they have to go for it.

6. How Bout that Offense. It’s tough to put into perspective how great the offense was in the 1st half. 494 total yards, 8.3 yards a rush on 207 yards, 10 of 14 passing for 287 passing yards. Those are game totals in themselves and that’s just the 1st half. The teams slowed down quite a bit in the 2nd half, including the Texas Tech offense. The Texas Tech offense had issues on 3rd downs in the 2nd half, just 2 of 10.

7. Advanced Stats.

Texas Tech averaged 8.9 yards on 1st down (I am sure a lot of that was in the 1st half), while WVU averaged just 5.7.
Overall, the Texas Tech offense converted 47% of 3rd downs and had to go 6.7 yards on 3rd down. WVU had to go 7.3 yards on 3rd down and converted 46.7%
Texas Tech stuffed 19% of WVU runs for no gain or a loss. WVU stopped 17% against Texas Tech.
Texas Tech was in passing downs just 33% of the time, which means they were way ahead of the sticks. WVU was 28% in the same category, which says something about the defense.
Texas Tech only ran 36% of their plays in WVU’s side of the field and that means it was high strike and explosive plays.
WVU had 15 big plays for 463 yards and Texas Tech had 18 for 500. That’s insane. That’s a 31 yard average for WVU and 28 yard average for Texas Tech. There was no defense. WVU had no big plays in the 4th quarter, while Texas Tech had 4.

8. Idle Thoughts.

There were no turnovers in this game. Not a surprise given the point totals, but with as much offense as there was, that’s a big deal.
I think I like that uniform combination. Still sorta on the fence about it, but I am leaning on liking it.
The receivers: Kenny Johnson 5 for 84 & 2 TD’s; Terrance Carter, Jr. 4 for 81 & 2 TD’s; Micah Hudson 2 for 76; Chase Campbell 2 for 56; Coy Eakin 1 for 22; Jett Carpenter 1 for 1 & 1 TD.
Rushing attack was largely the J’Koby & Thomas Show: J’Koby Williams 19 for 160 & 1 TD; Thomas Castellanos 23 for 102; Quinten Joyner 6 for 10 & 1 TD; Cameron Dickey 3 for 8.
Romaine showed up again defensively, 15 tackles and 1 tackle for a loss. I didn’t think that Ben Roberts and John Curry had great games, maybe not even good games.
Not only did Trey White have 2 huge sacks, he had 6 tackles and half a TFL.
Charles Anderson Jr. also popped, 7 tackles and half a TFL.
Maybe Will Karoll is coming back down to earth after a huge 1st half of games, just 42 yards a punt, but downed 2 inside the 20 and 1 50+ yard punt. That’s still not bad in my estimation.

9. Coach Comments.

10. Tortilla Tossin’ Players of the Game.

Trey White sort of saved the game and I’d also like to add that Mateen Ibirogba should get credit for that rush inside as well. That safety was huge and considering that Hawkins almost could not be brought down all night long. That alone was almost unbelievable. And maybe they need to share this because Ibirogba had a sack on 3rd and 7 with about 2 minutes left in the game that led to a 4th and 10 where White had another huge sack to force the turnover on downs.

Thomas Castellanos and J’Koby need to share these 2 tortillas. Castellanos was 18 of 27 for 362 with 5 TD’s and the 102 yards rushing ended up with 464 total yards. All-purpose yards for Williams was 202, 160 rushing and 42 receiving.

Want to shine a spotlight on those 4 big receivers, Johnson, Carter, Hudson and Campbell.