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You’re going to hear a lot about how great the Texas Tech football team looked against Oregon State. The 45-14 win is nothing to scoff at, and it only added more fuel to the fire in pegging the Red Raiders as the favorites to win the Big 12 Conference championship.
Outscoring your opponents 174-35 over the first three games of the season, it’d be easy to say Texas Tech has turned its transfer portal haul into a juggernaut that the rest of the conference, and the nation, will need to contend with.
Nothing is ever that black and white, and that’s certainly the case for the Red Raiders. While the Red Raiders are 3-0 heading into their anticipated showdown with Utah, it’s time to look closer at the non-conference dominance and see what it really means, if anything.
The competition hasn’t helped Texas Tech football
Joey McGuire, his staff, and the players on this year’s team can’t be blamed for this. Nobody expected Oregon State to be 0-2 heading into their Week 3 game, and even fewer thought the Beavers were in for this kind of downfall after a respectable 2024 season.
Even if McGuire felt his team was going to be far superior to the Beavers before the season — and they certainly were in Jones AT&T Stadium on Saturday night — it’s not like he could’ve replaced them on the schedule. The series was agreed to in 2018, well before McGuire’s arrival. At the time, it was a home game against a power-conference team that had respectability. What more could you want seven years ago?
Oregon State not being up to the task of challenging Texas Tech, right after the Red Raiders demolished overmatched FCS and Group of 5 competition, is not the ideal setting to get a firm grip on this team’s capabilities. McGuire said after the OSU game, Texas Tech hasn’t come close to what it can be.
That’s good, because beating up on overmatched opponents might get you some easy wins, but it doesn’t make a title contender — see: Indiana.
The running game has me concerned
Playing into the overmatched opponents, the running game is something that’s caught my attention as an area of concern. This would probably be the case if Quinten Joyner were healthy as well. He’s not, so it’s an easy out, but that’s not the whole story.
Texas Tech’s revamped offensive line gets a C from me through three games. Better than last year’s group, sure, though lacking in an ability to sustain blocks up the field or create good holes for J’Koby Williams and Cameron Dickey. Williams has shown more ability to make something out of nothing, while Dickey seems to pick up steam as the game goes along.
The numbers don’t look bad — 133 yards against the Beavers — but the eyes tell a different story. We’ll see how it goes against real defenses.
Behren Morton needs to find his groove in the red zone
Behren Morton’s restructured shoulder has looked fantastic, hitting plenty of deep balls. It’s those short-window throws near the goal line that haven’t looked the crispest. Morton has often found himself staring down targets too long and missling the ball off their hands. It’s a lack of cohesion that could stem from his missing spring ball and getting used to his rediscovered abilities.
I won’t say it’s an issue that can’t be fixed with more time, but it’s noticeable.
Secondary needs more of a challenge to know its true talents
The front seven and pass rush of Texas Tech have been as good as advertised. Opponents have yet to score on Tech’s starting defense, and the Beavers spent most of the game in negative rushing yards until garbage time.
For the first time this season, though, Tech’s secondary had to work a little harder. Not too hard, mind you. Maalik Murphy, like opposing quarterbacks before him, had to get the ball out quickly because of the pressure generated by the big guys up front. Murphy did find the holes in coverage and got some decent chunk plays out of it. Brice Pollock bailed Tech out by picking off two passes.
As long as the line of scrimmage is contained every game, the lives of Tech’s defensive backs should seem easy. That won’t always be the case, though, so we’ll see how they handle it when the time comes.
Starters not playing a full game could hurt the Red Raiders
The common thread in all of these can be boiled down to the lopsided nature of the contests. Texas Tech hasn’t been in a tight game, and they’ve all been decided by halftime. No need to put your starters at risk of injury in that case.
Can’t blame McGuire there, but the minor deficiencies that a team like Utah can exploit could’ve been worked out in these first three games. Hard to do that when your starters don’t have to play four quarters.
Could Texas Tech just be that dang good that they won’t have to play four full quarters? Sure, but seems unlikely. Until that time, we won’t really know how good this team actually is.
We’ll find out sooner rather than later. Probably next week in Salt Lake City.
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