The Match Ups
| Texas Tech Pass Offense vs. UTEP Pass Defense | |
| Texas Tech | |
| Patrick Mahomes was the real deal and he threw for over 400 yards and his receivers left some on the table. He probably left some on the table too, but either way, he was fantastic. Despite UTEP’s stingy pass defense statistics from last year, I think I still like Texas Tech here, namely because I think this is something that UTEP doesn’t see every week. Texas Tech is going to have to push those wide receivers against the bigger UTEP cornerbacks. Not only that, but UTEP gave up 300 yards to Arkansas and although he can throw a fantastic deep ball, this is a real strength for Texas Tech. If Cantrell can be healthy and we get some better concentration for some of the younger guys, then heck yes. | |
| UTEP | |
| Last year, UTEP was fantastic against the pass, allowing only 191 yards a game, and Davis Webb only threw for 278 yards against the Miners. UTEP really didn’t face many “passing” teams last year, maybe other than Louisiana Tech and Western Kentucky, so those stats may not tell the whole story. They did allow 7.8 yards per attempt last year, which was 78th in the nation. The Miners’ secondary was very much tested last week against Arkansas, a bit of a surprise. Arkansas threw up 308 yards on only 18 attempts, so when they got burned, they got burned very deep and for huge plays. UTEP runs a version of the 4-2-5 and they have two starting safeties that are over 200 pounds in LaQuintus Dowell and Dashone Smith, while they also have some big cornerbacks in Trent Trammell (6-0/200), Traun Roberson (6-0/195), Nik Needham (5-11/184) and Kanlon Beverly (6-1/175). | |
| ADVANTAGE: | Texas Tech |
| Texas Tech Rush Offense vs. UTEP Rush Defense | |
| Texas Tech | |
| Texas Tech wasn’t terrible running the ball. Personally, there was a part of me that really didn’t want Kingsbury to take the ball out of Mahomes’ hands becuase he was doing everything right. I didn’t count, but I felt like SHSU had 5 defenders on the line of scrimmage quite a bit and with press coverage on the cornerbacks, they were simply daring Kingsbury to throw the ball deep. Sort of an all-or-nothing approach by SHSU. After one game, Texas Tech still ran for nearly 175 yards, 44 of which was from Mahomes, which is only good for 75th in the nation or so and DeAndre Washington really didn’t get going. There’s plenty of room for improvement here and I think it will be better. I don’t know if I expect the same result last year where Texas Tech ran for over 200 yards, but I think Texas Tech will have some room to work with. | |
| UTEP | |
| We’ll take a little bit from last year and a bit from this year. We can’t utilize too much from either year at this point, but last year, the Miners gave up 178 rushing yards a game, but ended up allowing over 200 yards against Texas Tech, which didn’t have a track record of being a great rushing team. A large part of that was the fact that Justin Stockton broke off some huge runs. The UTEP defensive line isn’t all that experienced, especially inside, but they do return Nick Usher (6-3/240), who is more of a rush end and Roy Robertson-Harris (6-7/255). Maybe it bodes well for Texas Tech that UTEP was beat up a bit by the Arkansas offensive line, but the UTEP defense faces a pretty big and dominating offensive line every day in practice. The interior of the UTEP defensive line isn’t young, just inexperienced, as Alex Villarreal (6-4/300) and Gino Bresolin (6-2/290) should see most of the time. As far as the game against Arkansas, they were respectable, all things considered and Arkansas only ran for 182 yards. Again, they gave up a ton of yards through the air, but this wasn’t a terrible result. | |
| ADVANTAGE: | Texas Tech |
| Texas Tech Pass Defense vs. UTEP Pass Offense | |
| Texas Tech | |
| Now we get to the un-fun portion of matching up. Texas Tech allowed 320 yards to a team that wasn’t that great at passing the ball and after one FCS opponent, is 100th in the nation. That’s not particularly good. There were some positives, as you mentioned, namely, that the cornerbacks did a really good job of continuing to work. J.J. Gaines got a pick six, which is really great, and Thierry Nguema got himself an interception. Still, there were really big gaps on the field where the more capable of the two SHSU quarterbacks was able to find open receivers. I think we’ll see some improvement here, for two reasons: 1) UTEP isn’t the best passing team; 2) I do think you’ll see some improvement from the secondary in terms of how they play and I thought they were decent last week, although there were lots of gaps in the coverage. | |
| UTEP | |
| UTEP is replacing Showers and now Mack Leftwhich is looking to work his way into the offense. Playing Arkansas isn’t the easiest introduction and he took the easy and safe route for most of the game. This is probably advisable and despite having a pretty rough game, I could envision Leftwich taking chunks of yards from Texas Tech much like Sam Houston State. Ryan Metz is the back-up quarterback, but Leftwhich is probably the better passer right now. I don’t know what to think about the wide receivers, as they didn’t get too many opportunities down the field. These are both struggling units (the passing offense for UTEP and the passing defense for Texas Tech). | |
| ADVANTAGE: | Push |
| Texas Tech Rush Defense vs. UTEP Rush Offense | |
| Texas Tech | |
| This was not pretty and it could get pretty bad on Saturday. There was not much of a rotation as SHSU liked to go and not rotate any players and when their head coach that they had the advantage, he was correct. Of course, not substituting receivers has it’s own problems and maybe that’s why Texas Tech had some luck with some interceptions, but not rotating at all was hugely problematic for a slimmed down Rika Levi and Breiden Fehoko, who was making his first start. I don’t know what to make of the linebackers other than I think that were out of place more times than I’d like to see, but the defensive line didn’t do them any favors either. It’s tough, but Levi, Marcus Smith, Fehoko and Keland McElrath combined for 2.5 tackles. This is not a misprint and I was being extra careful to make sure that was accurate. They’ve got to shed some blocks and make some plays and the linebackers need to be better. Beat somebody. | |
| UTEP | |
| Eh, I don’t think I need to write all that much here. Aaron Jones is going to be really good and I would think that the UTEP game play will be to run Jones 30+ times on Saturday and I think it will work. I really would expect UTEP to have a pretty decent bounce-back game here. The majority of the offensive line is upperclassmen and they’ve got 3 big tight ends that, most likely, can block and catch a few passes. Jones runs very hard and he’s not afraid to hit someone and make some positive yards. Jones is really adept at catching passes out of the backfield. I know that’s supposed to be covered under the passing part of the UTEP offense, but Texas Tech is going to have to essentially shadow Jones out of the backfield all game long. He is, by far, UTEP’s best player and it’s not close. | |
| ADVANTAGE: | UTEP |
| Texas Tech Special Teams vs. UTEP Special Teams | |
| Texas Tech | |
| Well, Texas Tech does have a return touchdown, which is something that doesn’t happen all that often, and that pretty much skews his average in a positive way. I did note, and I don’t recall this from last year, that Texas Tech has a blocker back in punt returns to help with Cameron Batson, who did a decent job of returning punts the other day. Michael Barden was 1 for 1 on field goals and the extra points looked okay. Nothing to really complain about. The coverage was pretty good on kickoffs, going 7th overall in kickoff return defense. Taylor Symmank needs to work on those touch kicks. | |
| UTEP | |
| UTEP has a huge advantage with Autrey Golden as he’s incredibly talented at returning kicks. The Miners will replace Nik Needham at the punt return position as he fumbled on Saturday, leading to a UTEP turnover. Jay Mattox hit both of his field goals, 38 and 44 yards. | |
| ADVANTAGE: | Texas Tech |
The Tally
I’ve got Texas Tech favored in three categories, UTEP favored in one and a push.