Game Recap
Stats
Quotes
Highlights

2. Missed Opportunities (But a Win!). I hated being within the 10 yard line and not handing the ball off to Tahj Brooks 3 times (I’d be fine with Jalin Conyers being part of the mix of the well) and settling for a field goal felt like a mistake. A Coy Eakin dropped touchdown felt like it was a play that should have been made. Jordan Sanford dropping a sure interception (he was hit) that would have sealed the game. So many opportunities to be better and yet here we are with a win and Texas Tech is 2-0 in the Big 12 and that’s a great feeling. And the remorse of missing all of those plays and maybe getting lucky with the Cincinnati kicker missing wide right is the way it was supposed to go, but I wasn’t confident in this team going into overtime so I was glad to end it the way that it did. I never feel bad about wins, even wins that you get a little lucky on.

3. Saved by a Late Slide. In the last drive, a lot is going to be made regarding the slide by Sorsby, initially called targeting, was eventually waived and no penalty. Sorsby slid, he did slide, but he slid so late and he had not slid all game, it makes it impossible for the defender to do anything other look like he’s going for the head when it’s linebacker attempting to square up and make a tackle. The multiple run-off’s for the clock, one for an injury, and the second for this penalty that wasn’t. I’m sure that Cincinnati is upset, but Cincinnati certainly had a targeting call on Coy Eakin that went uncalled and even unreviewed.

4. Huge Chunk Plays. The defense played well except for huge chunk plays and those huge chunk plays really do count and you’ve got a Cincinnati team that had 555 yards of total offense including 426 passing. McGuire said after the game that they were forced to play Joseph Plunk at safety because they had run out of safeties, losing Chapman Lewis to a hamstring, Jordan Sanford messes up his hand, then Plunk goes down and Sanford has to come back and finish the game. Cincinnati was 7 of 11 on 15+ yards passing and had 13 big plays (rushes for 10+ and passes for 15+ yards) for 349 yards, which means that of those 13 plays, 7 were passing and 6 were rushing and that’s a lot of chunk plays to give up defensively. It seemed like Mo Horn, who gave up that long play to make it 14-3, Chapman Lewis gave up that first touchdown without much resistence, and Sanford whiffing on that screen pass that went to the house.

5. Tahj Shines. Texas Tech doesn’t win this game without Tahj Brooks, he absolutely carried the load, 32 carries for 172 yards, 2 touchdowns (should have made multiple shots for a 3rd touchdowns), averaging 5.4 yards a rush and we talked about the big plays for Cincinnati but for Texas Tech, the Red Raiders had 15 big plays for 349, and 3 of them were passing, which means that 12 of them were 10% running the ball. That’s a lot of yards.

6. Turnovers. I thought the game turned on the 2 turnovers, the fumble recovery and the pick-6 from A.J. McCarty was the difference in the game for me. And you could really sort of say that the 4th down that Texas Tech didn’t get was a failure on the offensive line, just no push whatsoever, they knew what Texas Tech was going to do, which is fine, give it to your best player, but the line didn’t block anyone on that play. And I don’t want the thought that the Ben Roberts forced fumble to start the 2nd half wasn’t a huge situation. Cincinnati had the ball to start the 2nd half and forced a fumble early that led to a Brooks touchdown to go ahead was a huge play and one that swung the game for sure. And McCarty’s pick-6 was the last touchdown that Texas Tech would score for the game.

7. Stats and Stuff.

• Texas Tech had 482 total yards of offense, 231 net rushing yards.
• Both teams went 5-5 in the red zone and both teams had 3 touchdowns and 2 field goals each.
• On 3rd downs, Texas Tech converted 64% of 3rd downs, 9 of 14 and had an average of 6.8 yards to go, which is probably too high. Texas Tech went 0-3 on 3rd and long.
• Of all things, Texas Tech was 10-11 passing on 3rd down and Morton was stellar there gaining 12.3 yards a completion and 11.2 per attempt.
• On rushing plays, Texas Tech was 3 of 40 running on 3rd downs.
• The defense wasn’t great on 3rd downs, but good enough I guess, 58% (7 of 12) and had a 5.7 average to go. Averaged 12 yards a rush on 3rd down and 6.8 yards per attempt.
• Texas Tech averaged 7.6 yards on 1st down, 19 for 153 on the ground and 4 of 10 passing.
• Cincinnati was in passing downs only 21% of the time compared to 31% for Texas Tech, which is good for the Red Raiders and that’s a great figure for Cincy (but bad for the Texas Tech defense).

8. Idle Thoughts.

• Texas Tech continues to do great things on special teams, the kickers are unbelievable. Garcia goes 2 for 2 with 45 and 27 and Burkhardt kicks a 38-yarder. Jack Burgess did his job, pinning Cincinnati to their 10 yard line on his lone punt.
• Jacob Rodriguez had 11 tackles, a quarterback hurry and half a TFL.
• De’Braylon Carroll had 6 tackles and 1.5 TFL.
• Josh Kelly caught 8 of 10 for 111 yards and was fantastic. Coy Eakin caught 3 of 8 and 2 of them were for touchdowns, a total of 78 yards with that long one of 49 yards.
• Haven’t even talked about Behren Morton (says more about me than anything else), who I thought was solid except for one pass that could have been picked, the one just thrown into the end zone. Not great numbers, but no turnovers. Was 19 of 29 for 66%, 8.6 yards per attempt, 2 touchdowns, and wasn’t sacked.

9. Coach Comments.

Opening statement

“I am so proud of this football team. Hats off to Cincinnati. They’re a really good football team. We felt that all week long and talked about it. We thought it was going to be a fourth-quarter game, but, man, I’m so proud of this team. Early in the game, we lost Chapman Lewis, he tweaked his hamstring and we couldn’t get him back. Then Jordan Sanford comes out and messes up his hand, so he has to go in at halftime. [Joseph] Plunk comes out and finishes the half, so we go through three safeties. We come out the second half and we have Jordan [Sanford], [Joseph] Plunk back, and Plunk comes out, messed up his shoulder. I feel like he’s going to be okay, but he got his shoulder pretty good. Jordan had to go back out there. He almost came up with a big interception, but it just kept going back and forth. Then on offense, man, can’t say enough. We shuffled the line. I think as this line goes with those five, and really kind of six with Ty Buchanan, we’re going to keep getting better. Tahj Brooks was Tahj Brooks. It’s something that we’re all accustomed to seeing the last two years. He goes for 172 [yards] and was really special tonight. I thought Behren [Morton] stepped up and made some big throws. We had some guys that made some big catches. It was great to see Josh Kelly get going because I felt like in the first, at least the first quarter, the first couple of possessions for us, they were really trying to take him away. He found ways to make plays. Drae McCray came up big tonight, had five catches. Coy [Eakin] came up big tonight, had two touchdowns. Just all around, a really good game. It’s all around a Big 12 game. That’s what it’s going to be, it seems like, every single week. It’s good to be 2-0 in the Big 12 and be 4-1. We’ll enjoy this one and then we’ll just get ready for a heck of a game against Arizona in Arizona.”

On the team’s mental toughness preparing for this game…

“One of the biggest things right now that we kind of shifted into over the last three weeks, one thing I tell them coming out of the locker room is, just focus on the first quarter. Be in this moment and we’ll figure out what the second quarter looks like when we get there. We’ve been talking more about rounds than quarters and coming out. [Cincinnati] has done a really good job. They have scored 52 points coming into this game, 52 points, and only allowing six in the first quarter. They’ve been really good coming out of half and we were aware of that. We knew that it was going to be kind of a back-and-forth game because they’re really talented and they’re good. They have a really good offensive line. They’re an old group. They returned five guys that started last year and the quarterback can really throw the ball. It’s just one of those deals where it’s like, just keep punching, just keep throwing body blows and staying the fight and good things are going to happen.”

On Ben Roberts performance…

“Man, at that position, it’s deep. Coach [Josh] Bookbinder does a really good job, but Ben, he’s one of those guys that every single week comes up big. The pressure on the pick-six was huge. The caused fumble and us recovering was huge. He’s such a good football player. He has such a high football IQ, you could put him in a lot of spots and he’s going to succeed and be a really, really good football player for us.”

On Behren Morton’s performance…

“He just keeps getting better. He’s making some really good decisions. We had some checks tonight that were really big. He had a couple big runs too that he feels really comfortable and really good about. He’s doing some things and I think he’ll just continue to do that. I think the one thing right now is he’s operating at a really high level, as far as seeing the field, and seeing what we want him to do with the ball. If you go back, there’s one drive that we have to kick the field goal, we dropped three balls. One of them was a touchdown. If you catch any of those balls you would probably score, but you definitely don’t drop the one going in. That’s a touchdown and all three balls were catchable balls. You put it on them and, you know, it happens. That’s football. You’re going to drop balls. We got to go to ‘what’s next?’. He was really throwing the ball well tonight. He was 19-29, so you take those three right there and he’s even in a better position.”

10. Tortilla Tossin’ Players of the Game.

The A.J. McCarty pick-6 was absolutely the play that won the game, as mentioned above, the last touchdown that Texas Tech scored. 3 tackles overall and 1 TFL in addition to the interception.

Ben Roberts had 12 tackles, 2 tackles for a loss, a quarterback hurry and that critical forced fumble to start the 2nd half that led to a touchdown.

Tahj Brooks was sensational, 32 carries for 172, 5.4 yards a rush, 2 touchdowns. Texas Tech wins the game because of Tahj.