Game Review: Texas Tech Red Raiders at Houston Cougars

The first thing my dad taught me about winning was not beating yourself.  Well, that was actually the second thing.  In team roping, the first thing is about learning how not to get yourself killed.  There’s a reason the pros look like they know what they’re doing. 

Outside of Kabul, there are probably more adult males per capita missing a finger in the Texas Panhandle than anywhere else in the world.  And, I can tell you exactly how nine out of 10 lost them.  The other one is more than likely a ring finger related to a design flaw in the handles of the 40 series John Deere tractors. 

Once you learned that, it was only about not beating yourself.  You couldn’t control how good anyone else was, only how good you were.  As long as you did that, you had a pretty good shot at winning something.  Like a buckle with way too much turquoise to ever wear in public or some shit, if you’re lucky. 

I don’t think Mike Leach has quite figured that out at this point in his career.  Similar to Leach, I’m not big on time of possession.  However, I value clock management dearly, and after almost a decade, I’ve basically given up on this facet of the game under Leach.  Keenum is the type of player that will make you pay for those kind of mistakes.

This season is not over, Raider fans, I still believe this is a good football team that will be hard for anyone to beat as long as they keep putting forth the kind of effort they’ve put out the last two weeks. 

It’s hard to go undefeated in a season and you need a little luck to win every game.  The bounces of the ball will start going our way, so long as we keep playing hard.  Now, let’s look at what we did wrong.

Before I forget, congrats out to the Cougars for the victory.  Case Keenum has got to be one of the hardest guys to sack I’ve seen play live.  He’s like the Madden version of Kordell Stewart.  Coupled with a strong arm and mental toughness, I’ve seen nothing that indicates he won’t make an NFL QB.  Dude is nails and going to make some plays on people. 

Case Keenum is the Houston Cougars and guys like that don’t come around often at any program.  He’s also surrounded by some skill players that can run.  All Keenum has to do is keep the play alive and they’re going to score points.  They’ve found a way to beat two pretty good Big 12 football teams and have enough talent to beat every team left on their schedule.  Not saying they will, but I was impressed with Keenum and the offense.

Player of the Game

By definition, this award must go to one guy and I have no scientific methodology.  I simply picked the guy, who impressed me the most, and that’s true freshman, Will Ford.  The Houston receivers were extremely fast, as was James Kirkendoll last week, and Ford can run right there with any of them.  He’s big, he’s fast, he’s physical and he changes how Ruffin McNeill plays defense. 

Past McBath and Charbonnet, Ruff made it clear last year that there wasn’t one safety worth having on the field for an extended period of time.  In other words, if Jordy Rowland and Anthony Hines don’t run much better than Bront Bird, then we might as well keep Bird on the field. 

He firmly doesn’t believe that about Will Ford and he’s the only DB Ruff has enough confidence in to play press coverage at the line.  Ford is the best young DB I’ve seen step on the field at Tech since Donald Harris.

Offense

In the first half, Batch/Jeffers/Stephens touched the ball 29 times for 237 total yards and 3 TDs.  In the second half, they combined for 12 touches and 64 yards.  I felt at halftime we were about to stomp a mudhole in the Cougars given the size of some of the holes being opened up on their undermanned front.

Houston never really stopped the Tech RBs, we just kind of quit involving them in the gameplan and more drives fizzled out.  If we’re going to try and punch it in on fourth and goal from the two, let’s at least give it to a guy who has a chance to get in.  That being Baron Batch.  I’ll never understand why you wouldn’t have tried to milk some time off the clock after Ford’s clutch interception.

Instead, we throw four passes, run 1:25 off the clock, punt, and put the ball in Keenum’s hands with 5:47 on the clock in a one possession game.  It was the only way the Coogs were going to win, and by God, they did it.   

QB

Outside of the sack/fumble and the intentional grounding, I didn’t think Potts was too bad.  He completed 67 percent of his passes with no interceptions.  Potts was shaky, but still made enough throws to win the game.  He’s got to learn when to get rid of the ball versus taking a sack and risking fumble.  Potts spotted the Cougars 7 points, which predictably bit us in the ass.

RB

Baron Batch had 153 total yards on 22 touches and 2 TDs.  Harrison Jeffers netted 70 yards on 6 touches and a TD, while  Eric Stephens got involved on 6 plays for 31 yards, but committed a crucial turnover.  Aggregately, we’re at 254 total yards on 34 touches and 3 TDs.  These guys are weapons No. 1, 2, and 3 on our offense in no particular order.

WR

As good as Lyle Leong and Ed Britton played last week, they played equally poorly this week.  Too many dropped balls.  Alexander Torres has been the most consistent over the last two weeks.

OL

Matt Moore almost won this game for us.  I didn’t think he would trust Lonnie Edwards on the road again and Mickey Okafor just isn’t put together correctly for getting his pad level down.  The running game wasn’t going to get untracked until we tried something different.

So in a ballsy move, Moore ran Chris Olson at LG and redshirt freshman Terry McDaniel at LT.  I’m guessing we’ll roll with this lineup so long as we’re clipping the 250 mark at RB.  These guys were performing a ritualistic midget toss for most of the game.

Olson was the missing link inside for executing our favorite blocking schemes in the run/screen game.  I could have ran through some of those holes.  Now, we get to start over from ground zero. 

Defense

Case Keenum is the type of player that will make a lot of teams look stupid over the course of his football career.  I thought Ruffin McNeill for the second week in a row, defended an elite QB about as well as anyone will all season.  With Ford in the mix, the nickel package is now our best friend and it’s interesting how much faster we look as a unit. 

It takes a special LB, like Travis Lewis, to cover a guy like Charles Sims out the backfield.  We had to respect Keenum’s arm and the deep speed of the Cougar receiving corps.  They were winded on the last drive, but I don’t think we could have called a much better game on this side of the ball. 

Congratulations, Raider fans, your defense has returned to respectability, and right now, is the strength of this team.  I wasn’t sure I would ever be saying that again when Chase Daniel was running over our LBs three years ago in Lubbock.  We’re not all the way there yet, but it’s not easy to make plays on us.

DL and LB

These guys had a tough task chasing Keenum and the Cougar skill players around all night.  Daniel Howard and company kept after Keenum, and the Cougar run game never seemed to really hurt us.  You would have liked to have got him on the ground a few more times, but damn, that kid can run.

DB

We’ve mentioned Ford, and until we get another guy or two like him at CB, we’re probably doing about as well as we can ask.  Wall can’t run deep with the Houston receivers and Moore is subject to double moves/overplay.  Tyron Carrier was bottled up on all but one drive in the third quarter.   Up until the game winning drive, we responded well to the three or four big plays we gave up and none of them really hurt us. 

Summary

Tough loss to a team with a special QB.  We’ll bounce back, and I’m almost certain, playing a team like Houston will help us out down the road in conference play.  We get a couple of home games to work out some kinks before facing another tough test in Lincoln.

This article was written by dedfischer of The Tortilla Retort.