seth: Another week and another win, which means another week of Chit Chat where you assign 100 points to whoever you want after Saturday’s win over Houston. One caveat for this week, which is that you cannot give the defense 100 points. I’ll go first.

20 points to Dakota Allen. He turned the game from the get-go. I don’t think I’ve thought that a player changed the game like he did in a long time. Allen and Broosk are revelations.

20 points to David Gibbs and the entire defensive staff and players. Just a phenomenal job with the entire game plan and everything else. Eli Howard said after the game that they beat the defense that Gibbs and Spavital built and they seemed to take a ton of pride in their defensive coordinator and what he’s previously accomplished and what we hope he’s accomplishing here.

10 points to Keke Coutee, who is the best player on the team.

15 points to the defensive secondary. I don’t think that Kyle Allen is a great quarterback, but they had him flustered and the defensive backs also had the receivers all but tackled at the line of scrimmage.

10 points to the offensive line, as they kept the offense moving enough to hang 27 and get up by two scores on Houston.

10 points to big Mych Thomas and Broderick Washington who just dominated the middle of the field.

5 points to Justin Stockton and Tre King for their work and sticking with that running game. They won’t break runs like that every game and they’ll need to be better at grinding out yards, but those two runs were significant.

10 points to Kingsbury. I don’t think a lot of folks had this team pegged as 3-0 to start conference play. Kingsbury has, at the very least, been a pretty steadying hand for Texas Tech football.

spencer: 25 points to the duo of Dakota Allen and Jordan Brooks. Those two are legit Big 12 linebackers and are getting better by the week. They had an interception each and were always around the ball.

25 points to Kingsbury for calling a much better game. He stuck to the run even when the Houston defensive line was disrupting the offensive line and Shimonek. Tech was able to break long runs after wearing down the defense where we’ve seen Kingsbury abandon the run.

15 points to the Tech defensive line for doing everything they could to keep the Houston offense from putting drives together. In my 5 Key Stats post, I lined out all of the Houston drives before their final two drives. The longest drives they were able to string together were maybe 5 or 6 plays and about 40 yards.

5 extra points apiece to Mych Thomas and Tony Jones for leading the way in pressure and creating turnovers. Jones recovered two fumbles and Thomas very nearly had himself a pick 6. Thomas is developing into the disruptive defensive lineman this team has been looking for since the likes of Colby Whitlock and Kerry Hyder.

10 points apiece to Cantrell and Coutee who continue to put up monster numbers. They seem to have developed into a formidable combination of clutch receivers that Shimonek can count on in a pinch.

Finally, 5 points Swany and BDC who really inspired this team on the road.

briandc: It was truly an honor to be the standard-bearers for the team in Houston. I don’t know if this made it to broadcast, but at one point Swany stood up on the railing next to the field, smashed two beer cans together above his head and downed the entire contents of both. I’ve never seen our team be more fired up after witnessing such a display.

For me, I’ve gotta give huge points to Dakota Allen & Jordyn Brooks (20 each) for their play on Saturday. From forcing turnovers to tackling anything in red, they were the anchors this defense has sorely been missing the past few seasons.
I want to give 10 to the defense line, and an additional 5 to Mych Thomas, for stifling the run. Duke Catalon had me worried, but those guys were a wall. Plus Mych’s hot potatoe near interception had me on the edge of my seat
Dominic Panazzalo gets 5 for his outstanding punting, including one that helped lead to a fumble.

Keke gets 10 for all of the Keke things he did, and I hope I don’t get spoiled watching him. The OL definitely deserves 10 for helping keep a potent UH defense in check and keeping Shim pretty clean. Gibbs & Kingsbury get 15 for having this team incredibly prepped and getting them to 3-0. I was incredibly surprised by our performance and couldn’t be happier. The final 5 goes to the shiny red liquid metal helmets that I’ve been clamoring for for years. Only change is I would have made the Double T black and white

seth: If Brian’s story about Swany is true, then I’m taking five of Kingsbury’s points away and giving 2.5 each to Swany and DC. That’s a good showing and dedication on their end.

michael: Alright, I’m jumping in here without reading anyone else’s comments. Since we can’t award all 100 points to the defense, I’m starting off by giving them 70 broken up as follows.

The unit, as a whole, gets 10 points. Do you remember Houston’s drive chart? There were 7 punts, two interceptions, and three fumble recoveries (two recovered by Jones) out of 17 total drives.

Individually, I’m giving 10 points each to Allen, Johnson, Dorsey, Lane, and Brooks. These five guys came up with 22 solo tackles, 2 interceptions, and 2 pass breakups.

The final 10 of the 70 go directly to Gibbs who had his guys ready to play at 11am in hot, humid Houston.

That leaves me with 30 that I’ll award to Kingsbury’s playcalling and overall team preparedness (10), Coutee on another spectacular day (10), and Stockton on some excellent runs (10).

michael: I have now read the comments above and may also need to allot some points to the red helmets (I was surprised by how much I liked them) and to BDC & Dan representing STP on our behalf in #clutchcity. *raises glass*

Do any of you feel that we should defend ourselves for not giving any points to Shim for starting his first road game and going 29/45 (64%) for 321 yards and 2 TD’s (should’ve been 3 if not for the Willies drop)? Are we just spoiled to good QB play? I don’t have a good answer other than that the defense was just THAT good.

spencer: I feel that was a very ho hum day for what we’ve already come to expect from Shim. He showed his human side as he was rattled in the first half, especially when Oliver was in the game

seth: And maybe without giving Shimonek any points, it says something about this team overall. That he’s a key cog, but so are so many other players. It’s a bit different relying on just one guy and this year, it seems there’s just so many guys that are contributing.

briandc: Shim has been great, but I agree with you Seth. it feels like he’s enabling others to make the plays moreso than making the plays himself