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Texas Tech football staff has gone to great lengths to sharpen WR screen game
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- Texas Tech football staff has gone to great lengths to sharpen WR screen game
Told this offseason that Texas Tech football fans were irritated at his team's execution of the wide-receiver screen game, Tech coach Joey McGuire smiled and said, "Me, too."
At various points this century, especially during the Mike Leach years, Texas Tech has unleashed wide-receiver screens in a lethal way. Think of Graham Harrell flipping a tunnel screen to Nehemiah Glover or Michael Crabtree and watching it break for big yardage.
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Last year looked nothing like that.
"We have not been effective in the screen game," McGuire said.
Rather than abandon it, McGuire's staff spent time during the off-season working to get better at it. They identified teams who did it well and drilled down on the details. New offensive line coach Clay McGuire both played and coached under Leach and alongside Lincoln Riley. He brought ideas.
Related: Inside screen has a present and a past in Red Raiders' playbook
More: Walk into a virtual world: New video tool one of McGuire's favorite features of coming Tech facility
Who did Texas Tech football staff study in the off-season?
" Florida did a good job," Joey McGuire said. "Clay brought a different screen that coach Leach used to use, and then we really studied Washington. Washington was really good at it last year."
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Tech won seven games last year without the perimeter-screen game being much of a weapon. Too often, it looked as if one wide receiver didn't do enough to spring the receiver with the ball.
McGuire said others weren't carrying out their assignments either.
"Just as much as the receivers have not been as good," McGuire said, "the line has not gotten out there or they miss the very first guy and all of a sudden we're getting hit before we can ever get it started.
"The screen game is so important, you've got to get the initial one or two guys blocked to get it started. We'll get one guy blocked and not get the second guy blocked. Now it's a negative play or a no gain, so that was a big part of studying different (teams)."
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Wide receiver Drae McCray said he likes what he's seen from the offseason emphasis.
"I think we've gotten a lot better understanding of what we're trying to do on different types of screens, so I think we've taken a big step forward now," McCray said last week. "I look forward to it in the season."
No possible solution was too small. Clay McGuire was tasked with cleaning up the offensive line's execution — who needs to get out to the perimeter and on what target. When Joey McGuire came across a perimeter-blocking drill he liked, he sent it to receivers coach Justin Johnson . The Red Raiders even thought of a creative way to work it into off-season conditioning.
"We tried to create some of our conditioning drills for the O-linemen," McGuire said, "almost like create a screen — the lanes that they would run, stuff like that."
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Why Raiders are encouraged by offseason work on screen game
In February, McGuire and company rewatched every game from last season together, with many takeaways. One was to not stray from using players at what they do best. McGuire said, for example, that wide receiver Coy Eakin "might be one of the best guys in the country at back-shoulder fades."
Back-shoulder fade throws from Behren Morton to Eakin could be a staple this season.
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So could perimeter screens to McCray. One screen in particular, McGuire said, has a lane like a kickoff return. McCray was the FBS's ninth-leading kickoff-return man in 2023, so getting him the football on plays that set up the same way seems logical.
"I think our skill level at receiver has improved," McGuire said, "so I think you've got for sure three guys who are going to be much better at it when you're talking about Micah (Hudson), Josh (Kelly) and Drae."
Texas Tech wide receiver Drae McCray (10) tries to shed a tackler near the sideline during the Red Raiders' 35-33 double-overtime loss last season at Wyoming. McCray is a key player in the Tech staff's priority to improve the wide-receiver screen game this season.
Offensive coordinator Zach Kittley said the Tech staff "did a lot of soul-searching" during the internal review.
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"I think if you talked to anybody within our football program and saw how we went about our screen game in the spring," Kittley said, "they'd say it was vastly improved from the fall. We studied a lot of other teams and then tried to find the best ways to get these guys the ball, get the ball out of the quarterbacks' hands quickly. We changed some things on how we practice that.
"When you look at the fall, it was not very good. I think we hit just a handful of screens that were all right, and then you look at the spring and we hit some explosive plays on some screens. (We want to) continue to sharpen up those details, making sure we're getting the ball where it needs to be, the right ball placement and getting blockers out on their landmarks."
This article originally appeared on Lubbock Avalanche-Journal: How Texas Tech football staff set about improving perimeter screens
