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If others can do it, why not Texas Tech football? | Don Williams
- Story by
- If others can do it, why not Texas Tech football? | Don Williams
BYU football coach Kalani Sitake started this season on coaching hot seat lists, trending downward the previous two years after his teams won 11 games in 2020 and 10 in 2021. Colorado coach Deion Sanders is in year two of a rebuild in a program that had won more than six games once in 18 years.
On Saturday night, BYU was undefeated as it geared up to face rival Utah in the Holy War and Colorado players and staff were on the plane back to Boulder as the next best bet to join the Cougars in the Big 12 championship game.
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If they can do it, why not Texas Tech football ?
Both teams have overtaken Tech in a snap. Despite the best efforts of a packed house in Lubbock, Colorado proved the point Saturday by beating the Red Raiders 41-27 . Deion might have picked pointless fights with the media and his detractors early this season, but he's having the last laugh. For all the attention that comes the Buffaloes ' way from having two Heisman candidates, their less well-known players manhandled the Red Raiders in the trenches.
Related: Texas Tech football blows lead, Joey McGuire blows stack in loss to Colorado
Related: Texas Tech football report card: Grading Red Raiders' loss to Colorado
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BYU has been winning with defense, an effective running game and an indomitable quarterback who's the face of the Cougars' charmed season.
They've both made it look relatively easy. Colorado benefits by having two of America's best players, but the Buffaloes came roaring back after the Red Raiders wobbled them early.
Maybe we saw it coming. Tech, at 6-4 and 4-3 in the Big 12, is now right on track to match our preseason prediction of finishing 8-4. Oklahoma State's so rudderless, the Red Raiders ought to be favored in Stillwater and then against West Virginia at home in the regular-season finale.
As I told someone the other day, Tech's program, maybe as much as any in college football during my lifetime, has had the remarkable ability to win at least six games and almost never more than nine. The Red Raiders are rarely terrible, rarely great.
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For a moment Saturday, greater than usual was there for the taking. Fox Big Noon Kickoff had set up shop here. The crowd was juiced. Too juiced. So juiced that Joey McGuire would take the mic early in the fourth quarter and, like a high-school principal, scold students to stop throwing stuff onto the field.
The Red Raiders channeled the crowd's energy and scored on their first three possessions to lead 13-0. Land another haymaker or two, make it a three-score game and the comeback would have been a tall order, even for Shedeur Sanders and Travis Hunter .
As too often happens, though, the Red Raiders faded badly. They went scoreless on nine of their next 10 possessions, mixing in three punts, two turnovers and two failed fourth downs during that stretch. The offense asserted itself with five plays of at least 17 yards on those first three series, then had five such plays the rest of the game. By the time they regained their footing, it didn't matter.
Texas Tech's Josh Kelly leaps toward the end zone against Colorado in a Big 12 football game Saturday, Nov. 9, 2024, at Jones AT&T Stadium.
Tahj Brooks somehow made it to 137 yards, enough to break Byron Hanspard's career rushing record, despite being regularly met at the front door by trick-or-treaters in search of tackles for loss. Colorado battered Behren Morton with seven sacks, two players having two each.
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In their past five games, the Buffs have 24 sacks, including six instances of two-sack performances by individual players. Package that level of defensive disruption with two of the game's brightest offensive weapons? That suggests the Buffs, winners of four straight road games, could have staying power.
And we wonder when the Red Raiders ever will.
This article originally appeared on Lubbock Avalanche-Journal: If others can do it, why not Texas Tech football? | Don Williams
