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Now that's the Texas Tech football attack people want to see | Don Williams
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- Now that's the Texas Tech football attack people want to see | Don Williams
It's tempting to say you can't take much of anything from the Texas Tech football team's 66-21 rout Saturday against North Texas . Power-conference teams favored by double digits against group-of-five opponents are supposed to win handily.
It's tempting to say the performance Tech gave in the non-conference finale at Jones AT&T Stadium means little, but it could mean everything if the Red Raiders play offense the way they did against old friend Eric Morris's team .
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It's not just the fact Tahj Brooks carried 19 times for 107 yards and a touchdown , though Brooks's mere presence after an injury-related, one-game absence put minds at ease. And it's not just that Behren Morton completed 15 of 19 passes for 273 yards and four touchdowns. Morton's sharpness after an erratic performance the week before at Washington State also should serve to calm.
Most meaningful, though, was how Tech offensive coordinator Zack Kittley and Morton went about carving up the Mean Green . Red Raiders fans have been yearning to see their guys attack over the middle and attack deep. All four of Morton's touchdowns fell into one or the other. He hit Josh Kelly on a slant, Coy Eakin over the top, Johncarlos Miller released free down the middle and Jalin Conyers on an underneath crossing route.
Remember in Full Metal Jacket when the other guys took the soap bars to Pvt. Pyle?
LUBBOCK, TEXAS - SEPTEMBER 14: Behren Morton #2 of the Texas Tech Red Raiders stands on the sideline during the second half of the game against the North Texas Mean Green at Jones AT&T Stadium on September 14, 2024 in Lubbock, Texas. (Photo by John E. Moore III/Getty Images)
The people who can never be happy were reduced to booing when the Red Raiders subbed out Micah Hudson for Caleb Douglas and cheering when Hudson subbed back in for Douglas, the not untalented transfer from Florida .
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(It was 1971 all over again, when the locals booed Jim Carlen situationally subbing out Joe Barnes for Charles Napper against Texas A&M — another game the Red Raiders won by several touchdowns, so what difference does it make? — citing the latter quarterback's ball security near the goal line. Barnes, like Hudson, was a young skill-position player, bluest of blue chips and, by gosh, keep him in the game! )
If that's the best the folks could come up with to crow about Saturday, that's a plus for Kittley, who's put off the locals with the prevalence of his wide-receiver screen game. The Red Raiders put the screen game mostly in the closet Saturday. The thought struck them to try something else against the Mean Green .
UNT defensive coordinator Matt Caponi used to work on the defensive staff at Iowa State under Jon Heacock, the venerable DC who was known to make Patrick Mahomes II look human. Heacock's scheming has been the source of Tech nightmares. The Mean Green run a similar look to the Cyclones, but Morton wasn't having it.
"They (safeties) play so low," Morton said, "we knew we were going to have the middle of the field open with play-action, pulling the free safety in the middle of the field down, because they think they've got to stop the run. They've got to defend TB (Brooks). When they bit, the middle of the field was open."
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Indeed, all four of Morton's touchdown passes followed a run fake to Brooks. So did Morton's own 10-yard touchdown run in which he faked a counter left and darted out right to the pylon.
Will it work again next Saturday and the Saturday after that?
"You're going to see different defenses every week," Morton said, "and from here on out we're going to see different defenses. (But) if they're going to open up the middle, we're going to rip them up the middle, too."
That'd be crowd pleasing, for sure. That's what made this Saturday not just any other blowout.
This article originally appeared on Lubbock Avalanche-Journal: Now that's the Texas Tech football attack people crave | Don Williams
