10 Things: Colorado 41, Texas Tech 27

1. Game Links:

2. Difficult to Write. it’s so difficult to write these things after a loss, especially one where I had to leave my house at 3:00 pm so I missed the entire game (didn’t get home until around 9:00), but knew the score and followed along. The 3 hour investment at 4 in the morning to get something out that’s relatively good decent is usually a lose-lose proposition. But here we go. HOWEVER! This is the reason why your comments are more meaningful than anything I write. You all drive the conversation anyway. the floor is open.

3. Offensive Line Issues. This is probably an offseason sort of question, but we’re here now. I’ve listened to Chris Level enough to know that he’s said multiple times that Texas Tech will dip their toe into the portal this offseason for the offensive line. “Dip their toe” probably isn’t accurate, they may just jump entirely into the portal. But the offensive line just isn’t good enough and I think they realized it almost immediately after the first game. Of the offensive line, there are 5 seniors, of which 4 are scholarship (I think: Rogers, Carter, Porcher and Sciury). I would say that Rogers, Carter and Porcher are okay to mid, but you need your seniors to be dominating and that’s not this. I can’t tink of one dominating offensive line performance, where they just absolutely whipped. There are 4 juniors, 2 of them are scholarship, Rodriques and Buchanan, while I think that Merryman and Rodkey were just walk-on’s that have had to fill bigger roles. So you have underperforming seniors, you have juniors that are also underperforming, but relying on walk-on’s to carry the water. There is one scholarship sophomore in Wilson and the rest are redshirt freshmen and freshmen that will not see the field for a while. I understand that Sciury has been injured, but that’s not solving the problem. For me, the problem is that you didn’t identify players that could help immediately in the junior college players, Porcher and Rodriques, and the fact that they can’t get on the field for an offensive line that struggles says all you need to know. Porcher is starting only because Buchanan is out perhaps and he’s a senior, so that’s it for him, right? The young players are not ready and the scouting staff didn’t identify players who were ready now and we know that because of the need to rely on walk-on’s to fill roles. You would hope that the redshirt freshmen, of which there are 5 (Carr, Fattig, Shaw, Sill and Morphis [who I think is a walk-on]) will be ready to take on an expanded role next year, but there are big issues here for sure.

4. Officiating. I’m not one to bring up officiating, but it’s basically the first thing that Joey McGuire said in his opening presser. He said that they will submit 5 facemasks that went uncalled and the roughing the passer, which he was told was because the hit was below the knee (it was clearly not) that this was called. McGuire can expect a fine this week, but I’m sure that will be covered in some form or fashion.

5. 2nd Quarter Struggles. Yeah, I can just post this and this is enough, right?

6. Fans Earning a Reputation. McGuire said that the fans were great, but he was brought a vape, a water bottle, and who knows what else, that the reason why Deion Sanders was complaining so much was because of those things, not because of the tortillas. We always sort of mock other fans for saying that Texas Tech fans throw batteries and ridiculous things. I’m just going to blame this on the students and they have to be better than that.

7. Penalties. The penalty situation returned and Colorado was able to overcome those because they have a quarterback that can sort of make up for those types of yards but 9 penalties for 80 yards isn’t going to cut it.

8. Idle Thoughts. This is the highlights I watched if you are interested. I think it is every play in about 22 minutes.

I understand that McGuire going for it on 4th down, fake punt and fake field goals were questionable calls, maybe putting yourself in a position to not catch up, but he felt that the offense wasn’t doing anything to create plays and needed a boost. There was a legitimate pass interference that wasn’t called on the pass attempt.

The defense was not ready for Shedeur Sanders to scramble. At all. That’s weird that this wasn’t something planned for, but here we are.

J’Koby Williams is an electric player and will need to figure out how to get him the ball more next year.

9. Coach Comments.

Opening Statement:

“There’s a lot of things that went wrong tonight. Anytime you give up seven sacks, it’s going to be hard to win. Anytime you turn the ball over like we did, it’s going to be hard to win. Again, the penalties hurt us. There were a lot of penalties this game. The frustrating thing is we’re sitting here. It’s 41-27. It could have been a little bit closer. We gave up that one right at the end on the turnover. We don’t get in the endzone, fourth and one, but I’ll tell you this, It’s 17-13 and it’s third and seven. We bring pressure, and it’s an incomplete pass. When you watch that play, somebody tell me how you can call roughing the passer. How do you not call five obvious face masks. One that they reviewed for targeting, and it wasn’t called, and then four others on our running back. It’s tough for me to sit here and say too much because its 41-27, you’re on the side, but in a game like this, we have to be better. I guarantee you Deion [Sanders] is going to sit there and say that he has to be better, but the officiating has to be better at this level. I’m just frustrated, and I hate it. I will tell you, I have to be better. I thought there were some good things that we did tonight, but we did not protect the quarterback. One reason we did not protect the quarterback is because we could not run the football in the first half. Anytime you can’t run the football, then they’re going to come after you. I believe they’re leading the Big 12 in sacks and not being able to run the football early really hurt us… I thought we were in a really good spot. We were up 13-0 and just didn’t do enough to hold that lead. Then the turnovers and getting our quarterback hit got us in the second half.”

On how the second quarter affected the team…

“I think last week in the second quarter and this week in the second quarter, we could not run the football, and that was a big part of it. Then in the second quarter, they took advantage of screen games. They outnumbered us on the screen, it was two, I think, two huge screen games. It was second-and-19 and second-and-16, and they converted them both. One of them, I think was a touchdown, but going back I think in both instances, us not being able to run the football effectively is really slowing this offense down.”

On Tahj Brooks breaking the school record…

“I’m so proud of him. I hate it for him and everybody else, but I hate it for him, that he broke it and didn’t get to celebrate a win. He breaks a record, and there wasn’t a whole lot of celebrating in the locker room, of course. I would tell you, Tahj [Brooks] tonight really doesn’t care a whole lot about the record. He will, and he’ll appreciate it, and I can’t thank him enough. He has been such an incredible person for us in this program. He’s going to push that record ahead, but I am proud of him. I’m happy for him and his family, and happy that he did what he came back to do. Everything he came back to do he still has in front of him and I’m really proud of him. [I’m] happy to be a part of his life.”

10. Tortilla Tossin’ Players of the Game.

Josh Kelly continues to be a game-breaker, 8 catches for 108 yards and the mark of someone who is really good is consistency and Kelly has been that pretty much all year. I’m also happy to see Jalin Conyers get more use, 3 receptions, 2 of them touchdowns, for 50 yards.

Jacob Rodriguez had 17 tackles, 13 by himself, 1 sack, 1.5 tackles for a loss, and 2 quarterback hurries. The only player in double-digit tackles, the next closest person is Charles Esters with 5 total.

Tahj Brooks breaks the school record, but doesn’t really get to celebrate that accomplishment. Despite not gaining more than 4 yards for any carry in the first half Brooks ended up finishing with 137 yards on 31 attempts and a touchdown plus 3 catches for 37 yards receiving. Congrats, you deserve all of the flowers.