1. Game Info

GAME THINGS
	Texas Tech Red Raiders (3-1, 0-1)
	West Virginia Mountaineers (2-2, 0-1)
	October 2nd @ 2:30 p.m.
	Milan Puskar Stadium – Morgantown, West Virginia
	West Virginia -7
	ESPN2 | WatchESPN
	Partly Cloudy 80-61.

2. Overview

RANKINGS	TTU	WVU
ESPN FPI	56	29
FEI Rank:	53	45
Sharp FB Beta-Rank	45	26

It is Neal Brown’s full third year as the head coach at West Virginia, coinciding with Matt Wells’ tenture. No matter the comparison, it didn’t matter because Texas Tech was never going to hire Brown despite the fact that he might have a good resume, largely because of his former relationship with Tuberville (still can’t believe that son of a bitch collected a check from Texas Tech). I know plenty of people that didn’t like the way that Brown called a game, but I’d still tell you that he’s a good head coach and I feel like I can say that with some certainty, although he’s 13-13 at West Virginia and a winning season last year, going 6-4.

ESPN is the lone outlier in terms of where the teams are ranked, generally speaking. Texas Tech dropped quite a bit after last week.

3. Texas Tech Offense vs. West Virginia Defense

	TTU Offense	WVU Defense
FEI	23	33
Sharp FB	24	25
Play Efficiency	6	76
Drive Efficiency	63	29
Negative Drives	42	26
Explosive Drives	15	61
Rush Efficiency	67	19
Pass Efficiency	15	50

Jordan Lesley is the defensive coordinator and followed Brown from Troy. The interesting thing about Lesley is that he was purely a JUCO defensive guy from 2007 through 2015 and got his shot at Troy and has never looked back. I’d also state that at Troy, that was the backbone of why they were so good. The co-defensive coordinator is Shadon Borwn who has bounced around a bit, going from Army to Colorado, to Louisville, to WVU.

Where WVU shines is attacking the line of scrimmage, 14th in the nation in sacks and 5th in tackles for a loss. The Mountaineer defense only has 1 interception on the year so my guess is that they are definitely letting the defensive front do the dirty work.

Up front at the two tackle spots are Akheem Mesidor (6-2/272) and Dante Stills (6-4/280) with Taijh Alston (6-4/245) at defensive end. Alston has 4.5 sacks already, with 5.5 TFL, Mesidor has 1 sack with 2.5 tackles for a loss. Yes, West Virginia runs a 3-man front, a relatively small defensive front, so there’s that to discuss.

VanDarius Cowan (6-4/242) and Jared Bartlett (6-2/225) are the bandit linebackers with Cowan netting 1 TFL but Bartlett is the pass-rusher with 4 TFL and 3 sacks already, while Exree Loe (6-0/218) and Josh Chandler-Semedo (5-11/226) are the two other linebackers, so they aren’t big, but they make plays. Chandler-Semedo leads the team with 35 tackles

Daryl Porter, Jr. (5-11/185) and Nicktroy Fortune (5-11/194) are the starting cornerbacks, while the three safeties are Scottie Young, Jr. (5-11/207), Alonzo Addae (5-10/185), and Sean Mahone (6-0/200). Mahone, Addae, and Young are 2, 3, and 4 in terms of ranking for overall tackles with Addae and Mahone each getting 3 TFL thus far.

The strength of West Virginia’s defense is the run, without question. the traditional stats back this up, as the Mountaineers have allowed 90 yards a game. The pass defense hasn’t been bad, but I don’t know that they’ve really played passing-centric teams (other than Oklahoma).

Texas Tech offensively is a bit of a mystery for me. I don’t know what their strength is and honestly, I really just want the trength to be how they dominate the line of scrimmage. I think the more I think about this sort of thing, it’s not about establishing the run or the pass, but taking advantage of the defense. This may be tricky for Colombi as the Mountaineers give up big plays, so they may be playing close and aggressive to the line of scrimmage, and that may not benefit what Colombi does. Running on that 3-man front might be different than running on the 3-man front for Texas Tech. I do think that Texas Tech should have an advantage at the receiver spot from a physical perspective. The offensive line is going to have their hands full with how active the line is. That’s where the challenge starts and ends.

4. Texas Tech Defense vs. West Virginia Offense

	TTU Defense	WVU Offense
FEI	85	77
Sharp FB	64	32
Play Efficiency	42	61
Drive Efficiency	123	26
Negative Drives	67	56
Explosive Drives	51	91
Rush Efficiency	57	70
Pass Efficiency	76	19

Brown is really the offensive coordinator, or he’s calling plays. Matt Moore is the associate head coach and offensive line coach, formerly at Texas Tech. Wide receivers coach Gerad Parker and running backs coach Chad Scott are co-offensive coordinators. Scott was also at Texas Tech, while Parker has bounced around a ton, going from Purdue, Cincinnati, Duke, Penn State, and West Virginia. That’s just since 2016. He was also the interim head coach at Purdue in 2016, I guess they fired somebody and he filled in and went 0-6. Had no idea.

Leddie Brown (6-0/216) is the leading rusher and really the player you need to watch as he’s averaging about 5 yards a carry and about 80 yards a game. I had no idea that WVU was running out an alternate quarterback, and that’s Garrett Greene (5-11/193) who has run for 6 yards a carry and 47 yards a game. Jarrett Doege (6-2/208) is the passer of the two, but Greene is 7 of 12 for 76 yards, so he’s doing fine. Doege is averaging about 222 passing yards a game, has had 6 touchdowns and no picks.

The receiver group is spread out, Winston Wright (5-10/180), Sam James (6-0/183), Bryce Ford-Wheaton (6-3/220), and Leddie Brown all have double-figures in catches, while the first 3 mentioned averaged more than 43 yards receiving a game.

The offense is good, but not great, a top half offense and it’s still early, but maybe it is the idea that they are an efficient passing team, but don’t pass a bunch. I think that Brown has the reins on the offense to an extent and the offense is efficient to an extent, but they aren’t explosive and they probably really grind out drives. The addition of Greene to the offense worries me, especially given what happened last week.

Texas Tech’s defense took a huge hit and that’s problematic. Giving up 70 will do that and feel that good will is largely lost. Keith Patterson didn’t really have any answers other than not “fitting” up and lack of communication and that’s a weird reason. The same thing goes for the above regarding controlling the line of scrimmage. That simply has to be better and whatever combination of fitting together that didn’t happen last week (I doubt that Texas ran anything so exotic that they were thoroughly confused) but I’m cheering for the simple things.

5. Special Teams & Injuries

Casey Legg has made all 6 field goals and all 14 extra points. Evan Staley handles kickoffs with 6 of 20 touchbacks. Winston Wright, when he does return it, is fantastic and has a touchdown, averaging 41 yards a return while WVU doesn’t have much going on in terms of punt returns.

I’m not totally sure about the injury situation for West Virginia, but for Texas Tech, safety Marquis Waters is out for the year while cornerback Malik Dunlap is day-to-day. I also haven’t heard of an update for running back Tahj Brooks.

6. Lagniappe

lagniappe | something given as a bonus or extra gift.

These are your uniform combinations.

Grades from the Texas game. Woof! You all were honest and I believe based on the result accurate.

Dallas Morning News’ Ryan Mainville | Texas Tech prediction: Red Raiders head to Morgantown focused on winning the run game

Athlon Sports’ Nicholas Ian Allen | Texas Tech vs. West Virginia Football Prediction and Preview

Herald Dispatch’s Ryan Pritt | WVU football: Big-play ability defines Texas Tech offense

College Football News’ Pete Fiutak | Texas Tech vs West Virginia Prediction, Game Preview

7. Prediction

I’m on a terrible streak. Absolutely terrible. I’m probably not betting enough games. I kid. I realize this makes things worse. I’m not going to outsmart myself, I think the 7.5 spread is too much, despite whatever you might think, and that the game will be relatively close. I also think I’m taking the under in this game, it will be more low scoring than not. Also, head-to-head, West Virginia is 3-6 against the spread.

Sources

Football Outsiders
ESPN FPI
Sharp College Football
CFB Stats