10 Things: West Virginia 20, Texas Tech 13

1. Game Links:

2. Very Abbreviated. This will be very short and atypical for me. I ran a 50k yesterday out in Jacksboro. I was able to listen to the first 3 quarters on the mighty-mighty 1190 on the drive home and then when I got home and passed out for an hour. I haven’t watched a second of highlights or the game itself, so this is purely a numbers based recap. I do have a general sense of what happened and know that there was a chance to win the game at the end, but it didn’t happen.

3. This is not the offense we signed up for. The rushing numbers look fine, but they were only that way because of a stacked second half. 10 rush attempts in the first half compared to 28 in the second. There was Behren Morton’s first drive and it was clear that the offense needed to get on the rails. Kittley ran the ball on 1st down, so that’s good, gained like 4 yards, and thought this would be a perfect time to run it again and establish something. Nope. Two incompletions and Texas Tech punted . . . again. The rushing success rate (success of the rush based on down and distance) was 50, which is really good and the best it’s been all year. Counter that to the offensive success rate (successful plays based on down and distance) and it was 28. Abysmal. The weather probably didn’t help, but the drops and just missing receivers by throwing at their feet isn’t Kittley’s fault. I do think that the quarterback for short yardage needs to end, it sounded as if Morton hurt his shoulder on the 4th and half or so.

4. Third Down Disaster. Converted a whopping 11% of 3rd downs and the average distance was 7.5 yards, which is stupid. That means that there are penalties or just bad plays that lead up to needing 7.5 yards on 3rd down. Texas Tech converted 1 3rd down by pass and 1 by run.

West Virginia converted 4 3rd downs by penalties and listening to Harris and Jenson, they were gifted all of them (biased, I know, but still).

5. 15 of 43. That was the total completions and attempts for the quarterbacks for a completion percentage of 35%. Before Tyler Shough was injured, his rating was 37.5 and Behren Morton’s rating was 79.9, which isn’t really all that great.

6. Defense Did Good. You sort of hated to see the 4th quarter touchdown given up, but generally speaking, the WVU offense had the ball for nearly 35 minutes, largely because Texas Tech went 3-and-out for a handful of possessions in the first half. It is not the defense’s fault that the offense didn’t capitalize on the turnovers. West Virginia averaged 3.7 yards per rush attempt, but they also completed 59% of their passes, which makes some sense given how much Texas Tech was having to support the run and WVU only had 99 yards passing for the game.

7. Offensive Line is Doing No Favors to the Offense. A lot of the criticism of the offense is based on the quarterback play, which hasn’t been great, but the offensive line, that was supposed to be bolstered by transfers and players who sat out last year had not been it. Not at all. The WVU defense had 5 quarterback hurries and 2 sacks, one of those was on a 3rd down. I don’t know what it is, but they aren’t helping the quarterback at all.

8. Idle Thoughts.

I feel terrible for Tyler Shough and wish him a speedy recovery. I think I read that it was a broken bone.
Tahj Brooks had 24 carries for 149 yards, averaging 6 yards a carry.
The leading receiver was Xavier White who had 3 catches for 45 yards.
I’ll let this marinade, Jerand Bradley had 10 targets for 3 catches and was not credited with a drop. Again, not seeing the game, I don’t know the accuracy of this. He wasn’t the only one with a catch rate in the 30% range, but he was the only receiver with double-digit targets.
Loic Fouonji is no longer starting and neither is Steve Linton.
Malik Dunlap continues to make plays and had another pick yesterday.

9. Coach Comments.

Opening Statement:

First of all, (I’m) really proud of our defense (and) the way they played tonight, gave us the chance to win the game at the end and we had a chance (with) a couple plays (and) we just didn’t get it done. (I am) really proud of (sophomore quarterback) Berhen (Morton) for coming in, with (senior quarterback) Tyler (Shough) getting hurt. I hate it for Tyler man, he can’t catch a break. (There) was a couple of stats, when you look at the stat line, I’m sure y’all have looked at, you know they really stand out. You know, one on third down, we (have) to get a lot better at what we’re doing on third down. (We need to) convert. I think we were 2-of-18. (I’m) really proud of our special teams, I thought that we had some big plays with (junior wide receiver) Drae McCray and the return game. (I) thought that (super senior punter Austin) McNamara did a great job tonight. He was averaging 49 yards a punt, 54 for long. (I’m) just frustrated. We’re sitting here and you know last year, (we) were in some of these games and found a way to win, and now we’re not finding ways to win in these close games, and we’ve got to. Hats off to West Virginia, I thought they played a really good game.

On sophomore quarterback Behren Morton and the offensive production:

I thought that he did some really good things. We just, as a whole offensively, our ones and twos get the same amount of reps. I didn’t think that had anything to do with it, other than (we’ll) have to go back, I think we had some drops that just happened. I think in close games, those things just show up. We have got to do a better job with that. You know, we gave up two sacks tonight, and he got hit twice, early in the first half and that second quarter slowed us down. Anytime you get those kinds of negative plays, that’s always gonna bog you down. We caused two turnovers, and I think that we got three points out of two turnovers. It’s always frustrating when you cause those turnovers and don’t get anything out of it.

On miscues throughout the game:

There were four third-down penalties that were converted by penalties. When that happens, you know you hope that they are right. Nine-for-ninety-six and 3-for-20, so I guess we were playing a different game, especially on third down. You hope you are 100% right in critical situations, if that’s going to happen. You’re going to go through the game, there’s going to be critical situations where the same thing could be called, and there’s no calls. We’ll look at that tomorrow and do what we normally do, and ask questions. (We’ll) try to get better with the explanation that they give us, but that’s frustrating. If you go back and talk about those penalties like we’ve talked about them before, (at) Wyoming they scored 17 points or 14 points (and) two of those touchdowns were converted off of penalties. The last drive, you know, it was a face mask and we missed a sack. You know, (super senior defensive lineman) Tony Bradford is getting kind of knocked back and trying to grab, and ended up grabbing the face mask. That’s a no-brainer, you see those and you live with it. Third down, four converted (off penalties), so you hope they’re right.

10. Tortilla Tossin’ Players of the Game.

Tahj Brooks definitely deserves one of these, I think the wish was that he could have had more opportunity in the first half.

Jessiah Pierre and Ben Roberts showed up, Pierre had 12 tackles and Roberts had 11 tackles, half a TFL and an interception.

Jaylon Hutchings had his 50th career start and finished with 6 tackles and 2.5 tackles for a loss.