Texas Tech (5-2, 3-1) vs. TCU (4-3, 2-2)
When: Saturday, October 26th @ 2:30 pm
Where: Amon G. Carter Stadium | Ft. Worth, TX
TV & Streaming: FOX
Radio: TuneIn Radio
The Line: TCU -6
Weather: Sunny, 88-64
Sonny Dykes has gone from hero to something else this season, a college football playoff team to a team that has 1 win this season in the Big 12 thus far. Dykes is a Texas Tech alum, actually played baseball for a couple of years before starting his coaching career. A couple of high school years and really got his break as the receivers coach at Texas Tech before leaving for Arizona then head coach at Louisiana Tech where that spring-boarded him to Cal. Cal didn’t work out well for him, maybe just having recruiting locked down like he did, but then became the head coach at SMU and then left the Ponies for TCU, which obviously didn’t sit well with a lot of SMU folks.
Your favorite offensive coordinator Kendal Briles is the OC for the Frogs. I don’t know that I need to tell you his history at Baylor where he was highly successful and then had to go do it on his own, starting with Lane Kiffin at Florida Atlantic, then Houston, Florida State, Arkansas and then at TCU from 2023.
Andy Avalos is the defensive coordinator, spending most of his career at Boise State, from 2012 to 2023 with a short stint at Oregon as the defensive coordinator from 2019 & 2020. Avalos is a Boise State alum, playing linebacker for the Broncos. When Avalos returned from Oregon, he returned as head coach and went 7-5, then 10-4, but a 5-5 season led him to be let go with 2 games to play.
STOCK UP:
+ Tim DeRuyter has always sort of bounced back with the defense, but I don’t know if the players are there for him to do that. Why is this in the positive? I gotta put something here.
+ Caleb Douglas looked good, was 9 of 10 on his catches, 99 yards and 3 touchdowns.
+ 100% of the current bets for the TCU game are on Texas Tech at this point.
STOCK DOWN:
– Special teams. Man, this was a disaster. A line-drive punt, a shank, taking a kickoff out of the end zone when it shouldn’t have been taken out, the squib kickoff that wasn’t recovered, just so many things that affected the final. It’s like they hadn’t practiced anything.
– The defense continues to have issues at home, maybe not huge passing yards, but over 200 rushing yards for a team that didn’t run the ball really very well, Baylor careered and it was terrible. Oh, and it was 178 yards on just 21 attempts in the 2nd half, 8.5 yards a rush.
– The passing defense wasn’t much better. The 2nd half alone, Baylor was 8 of 10 with 4 of those completions being touchdowns. Really?
– I need Behren Morton to elevate the team and that’s not happening. I also think that the staff really doesn’t want him to do that, to try to carry the team on his shoulders. I don’t know that he would have made the game any closer, but there are times I feel like he’s holding back because that’s what the staff wants. Morton’s numbers were fine. About 286 yards passing and nearly 70% completion percentage.
– The defense gave up 8.1 yards per play.
– The offensive efficiency has to be better. Just 35% on 3rd downs and it’s not like one half was better than the other, it was about 35% for the entire game and that’s not good enough. The other problem was that the average distance on 3rd down was 7.4 yards, which is way too high. Again, this means 1st and 2nd downs are a bunch of crap or penalties or something. And the offensive line wasn’t doing anything on trying to run on 3rd downs, 6 rushes and 23 yards, 3.8 yards a rush.
BIG 12 PUZZLE:
Last Week: BYU continues to win, a late touchdowns wins it 38-35 over Oklahoma State and the Cowboys are winless in the Big 12 . . . Iowa State wins a close one at home against UCF, 38-35, scoring 24 points in the 2nd half (rather than giving up 100) . . . Kansas State blows out West Virginia in Morgantown, 45-18. I wonder what a blowout win is like . . . Cincinnati downs Arizona State 24-14 and I think I read that the ASU head coach is asking for kickers to come try out this week . . . Kansas gets their first conference win by blowing out Houston, 42-14 . . . Colorado dominates Arizona, who may not be very good, 34-7 . . . TCU gets a hard-nosed win against Utah in Salt Lake City, 13-7 . . .
This Week: I can’t say I understand this spread, but BYU is favored by just 1.5 on the road against UCF . . . Oklahoma State is in Waco where the Bears are favored by 4 and maybe it is recency bias, but I’d take Baylor here . . . Arizona is favored by 3 as they host West Virginia . . . Utah is only favored by 3 as they travel to Houston to take on the Cougars . . . the Sunflower Showdown, Kansas is in Manhattan to take on Kansas State with the Wildcats favored by 10 . . . Colorado is favored by 4 as they host Cincinnati . . .
NEWS:
Texas Tech Soccer: No. 19 Tech downs Cincinnati, 3-0
Lubbock Avalanche-Journal’s Don Williams: One bad day exposes Texas Tech football’s vulnerabilities | Don Williams
Lubbock Avalanche-Journal’s Don Williams: Special-teams letdowns set stage for Texas Tech football loss to Baylor
Inside the Red Raiders’ Joe Yeager: To This Point in the Season, Texas Tech’s Defense Is Historically Bad
I never thought I’d see another Texas Tech defense as bad as that one. But, lo and behold, when one looks at the stats for the 2003 defense and compares them to the 2024 defense, a rather disturbing presence emerges from the miasma of history and fact. I compared the numbers for 11 key statistical measures, and on eight of them, the 2003 defense actually finished above where the 2024 defense currently stands. Only in rushing yards per game allowed, yards per passing attempt allowed, and third-down defense, does the 2024 unit best the putrescent 2003 outfit. In points allowed per game, yards allowed per rushing attempt, passing yardage allowed per game, yards allowed per play, total yards allowed per game, fourth-down defense, sacks per game, and red zone touchdown percentage, the 2003 defense actually outperformed the current defense to this point in the season.