As I sit here waiting/hoping someone uploads the entire three hours of bewilderment to youtube, I can't stop thinking about how mystifying that loss was. Now, I was one, all offseason, and all week, being called a pink raider and suffering from battered Tech syndrome for questioning some of the hype coming out of the football facility and predicting this game would be close. I had questions about the pass rush and offensive line improvement, questions about Shough being good enough, questions about offensive skill speed, and questions about inside linebacker depth (even had my wife ask McGuire about this at some charity function), but, before I pull a muscle patting myself on the back, I never actually thought Texas Tech would lose to Wyoming.
I thought the game would be close because I could see a pretty realistic gameplan for Wyoming to execute; slow the game down, limit possessions, make Tech drive the field, hope the Tech offense gets frustrated and out of sync, keep it close into the 4th, hope to catch a break and steal a win. The most discouraging part of Saturday is that is not what happened. Tech was up 17-0 and cruising in the first quarter, a nightmare start for Wyoming who was begging to get blown out in that moment, and Tech proceeded to, basically, do everything wrong and allow Wyoming to dictate the rest of the game.
Scoring Opportunities consist of all offensive drives in which the ball has been advanced past the defense's 40 yard line.
Expected Points (EP) assumes that not all yard lines are created equal. In other words, each yardline is assigned a point value and measures the number of points that would be expected to be scored based on down, distance, and field position. A negative value means that the opposing team would be expected to score the next points in the game.
I mean, just look that this chart from collegefootballdata.com combined with the fact that, at one time, Tech was up 17-0. It's borderline unbelievable. Tech had almost double the amount of scoring opportunities, won the starting field position battle, and completely squandered both. If you would have shown me the scoring opportunities pregame, I would've expected Tech to cover and all the "battered Tech fan syndrome" talk would have been justified. I thought Tech would have about 8 TOTAL possessions in the game.
Predicted Points Added (PPA) is the same thing as EPA. There are various different models for calculating EPA and EPA. PPA uses this site's custom EPA model.
Expected Points Added (EPA) uses Expected Points to measure the outcome of a play. It takes the EP value from the beginning of a play (e.g. 2nd and 5 at the 50) and subtracts it from the EP value resulting from the play (e.g. rush for 10 yards results in 1st and 10 from the 40).
Explosiveness measures the average EPA on plays which were marked as successful. It uses this site's EPA implementation (known as PPA).
To me, this tells the story of the game. I have a hunch that the offensive staff thought that Shough was good enough to beat Wyoming without using him in the run game. He was not.
His passing chart looks fine, but those who watched know the PPA chart tells the real story. He made some plays, looked good in spots, but when the offense really needed a play, Shough was not able to do what was required to keep a drive alive or get points. This is a huge problem, to say the least. I will admit bias here, I have never been Shough guy, I wanted Donovan to be the starter last year, would like to see Morton this season. I'm not sure Shough has the ability to read a defense and process what needs to be done fast enough for Tech to win at the levels desired. This is especially true if you are not using him as a runner, and this was a huge misstep by the offensive staff, they showed us all that this was a mistake by going to it in nut-cutting time. The threat of Shough running provides him slightly more time to process and forces the defense to show their hand earlier, it also gives him less reads to make. If Shough is going to continue to start, the offense has to look like it did to end last season or we are in trouble.
Last thing before the film, Wyoming was more explosive offensively than Texas Tech. Wyoming was more explosive offensively than Texas Tech. I had to type it again to prove to myself that it was real. Completely unacceptable. Not to pick on Shough, but I do think he has something to do with this, he often "ends routes" with his throws, meaning he doesn't give our athletes the chance to show their athleticism due to ball placement. This lack of explosiveness is more than a Shough problem though, it's a roster problem, but it's also a coaching problem. I saw very few instances where it looked like we were even trying to get our athletes in space, shouldn't that have been the entire gameplan against this Wyoming team? I'm concerned about the offense. Like Kliff, so this makes sense, I am worried about Kittley calling plays after his initial script, and I think he gives up on the run game too quickly.
For the film, I couldn't find a full game anywhere, thanks a lot CBS, so that really limited the offensive clips I wanted to share, but if you have a question about any particular play/situation, ask away.
This Shough picked turned the game, and it drives me insane because it was totally unnecessary. I want to point out that I thought the the offensive line protected really well all game, that was a strength of Hamby's unit at WKU, nice to see it translate. I am still very concerned about their ability to create a viable running game. It's 2nd and short, I get the shot play idea here, but if it's not there at all, run or take the sack! This is one of the most difficult throws, the deep out, Shough was nearly picked on this same concept twice, and has never really shown the ability to hit this consistently. Donovan was really good at it. If you are going to throw this, you absolutely cannot miss short and inside... he missed short and inside. We have a ball game. It's difficult for me to fathom that your 6th year QB took this risk in this situation and that these deep outs kept getting called by the OC. If this is a 15 yard sack, Tech probably wins this game.
It's not fair to show this many bad defensive plays when the offense was mostly to blame for the loss, I would've expected Tech to win if Wyoming scored on every single offensive possession after going up 17-0, but I think some of the things we see from the defense in these clips may have more of an impact in games going forward. I know a lot will be made by the lack of production from defensive line, after all of the hype, but I put these clips together to focus on inside linebacker play, so focus on those two when watching.
I know these guys were put in a tough position after Rodriguez went down, but they must improve this week for us to have a chance. Notice how easily influenced they are by meaningless movement and not reading their keys. This leaves them out of position to make plays, late to fill gaps, and opens gaps easily found by the Wyoming run game. They played incredibly undisciplined and hoped to make up for it with athleticism, in the words of Andy Dwyer when summarizing Rambo, it did not go well! This can be improved with reps and film study, but it needs to happen very quickly. It's somewhat fitting for this night that one of the areas of concern we were told not to worry about almost immediately turned out to be a huge problem. You can see why DeRuyter kept blitzing them, it was their only chance to actually make a play.
I included the last two plays here because I wanted to say that I thought the safety blitz was a perfect call. You did not want to allow their QB to improvise, force him into a quick/easy decision and cover that decision. It's a good play call from Wyoming, that TE switch is not easy to cover in man, and it totally fools our safeties. They both take the outbreaking one, leaving the easiest throw on the field wide open, complete disaster. I assume this is Owens fault, based on alignment, but I can't know for sure. Unfortunate for the guy we wanted back there for his coverage skills. Maybe I'm being nitpicky, but Rabbit has to jump and make himself as big as possible on this blitz when he realizes he's not gonna get there in time. Instead he makes himself even smaller and provides a throwing lane for the QB. If it could go wrong, it did.
The game was over when they scored, but the two point play was obviously impacted by the touchdown. Look at the LBs discussing TE alignment up until the snap, look where Owens is lined up!! Totally in his head about the last play, not thinking about situation, and totally takes himself out of the play. I was screaming at the TV for McGuire to call a timeout. And, because this was the type of night it turned out to be, where is Wyoming running the ball? Right where Owens should be filling that gap.
Ultimately, as much as no one wants to hear this, I think Saturday night can be categorized as “one of those nights.” You play that game 1000 times, after going up 17-0, Tech loses one time. It's not an excuse, but sometimes it happens. Between the Favrean/Mahomesian plays their qb made, Shough slipping on, would be, first down run, Bradley’s goal line drop, having a made field goal chalked off due to ref incompetence, to even some of the penalties, if it could go wrong, it did. What makes that hard to take is that you really haven’t had one of these games under McGuire, and we probably thought those days were behind us, but they are not.
Again, no one wants to hear this because Saturday was a complete and utter disaster, but this loss does not sink the season. 2016 OSU, 2020 ISU, anecdotally, my best season as a coach started 1-2 with two very disappointing losses but ended in the state quarterfinals. Sometimes something like this can give coaches and teams a clarity that will payoff in the long run. I still believe in McGuire and Co and will continue to support, we’ve seen too much good, but the good vibes are over and the hype train has crashed, and we need to see, like we did last season to be fair to them, that this coaching staff has some answers.
I thought the game would be close because I could see a pretty realistic gameplan for Wyoming to execute; slow the game down, limit possessions, make Tech drive the field, hope the Tech offense gets frustrated and out of sync, keep it close into the 4th, hope to catch a break and steal a win. The most discouraging part of Saturday is that is not what happened. Tech was up 17-0 and cruising in the first quarter, a nightmare start for Wyoming who was begging to get blown out in that moment, and Tech proceeded to, basically, do everything wrong and allow Wyoming to dictate the rest of the game.
Scoring Opportunities consist of all offensive drives in which the ball has been advanced past the defense's 40 yard line.
Expected Points (EP) assumes that not all yard lines are created equal. In other words, each yardline is assigned a point value and measures the number of points that would be expected to be scored based on down, distance, and field position. A negative value means that the opposing team would be expected to score the next points in the game.
I mean, just look that this chart from collegefootballdata.com combined with the fact that, at one time, Tech was up 17-0. It's borderline unbelievable. Tech had almost double the amount of scoring opportunities, won the starting field position battle, and completely squandered both. If you would have shown me the scoring opportunities pregame, I would've expected Tech to cover and all the "battered Tech fan syndrome" talk would have been justified. I thought Tech would have about 8 TOTAL possessions in the game.
Predicted Points Added (PPA) is the same thing as EPA. There are various different models for calculating EPA and EPA. PPA uses this site's custom EPA model.
Expected Points Added (EPA) uses Expected Points to measure the outcome of a play. It takes the EP value from the beginning of a play (e.g. 2nd and 5 at the 50) and subtracts it from the EP value resulting from the play (e.g. rush for 10 yards results in 1st and 10 from the 40).
Explosiveness measures the average EPA on plays which were marked as successful. It uses this site's EPA implementation (known as PPA).
To me, this tells the story of the game. I have a hunch that the offensive staff thought that Shough was good enough to beat Wyoming without using him in the run game. He was not.
His passing chart looks fine, but those who watched know the PPA chart tells the real story. He made some plays, looked good in spots, but when the offense really needed a play, Shough was not able to do what was required to keep a drive alive or get points. This is a huge problem, to say the least. I will admit bias here, I have never been Shough guy, I wanted Donovan to be the starter last year, would like to see Morton this season. I'm not sure Shough has the ability to read a defense and process what needs to be done fast enough for Tech to win at the levels desired. This is especially true if you are not using him as a runner, and this was a huge misstep by the offensive staff, they showed us all that this was a mistake by going to it in nut-cutting time. The threat of Shough running provides him slightly more time to process and forces the defense to show their hand earlier, it also gives him less reads to make. If Shough is going to continue to start, the offense has to look like it did to end last season or we are in trouble.
Last thing before the film, Wyoming was more explosive offensively than Texas Tech. Wyoming was more explosive offensively than Texas Tech. I had to type it again to prove to myself that it was real. Completely unacceptable. Not to pick on Shough, but I do think he has something to do with this, he often "ends routes" with his throws, meaning he doesn't give our athletes the chance to show their athleticism due to ball placement. This lack of explosiveness is more than a Shough problem though, it's a roster problem, but it's also a coaching problem. I saw very few instances where it looked like we were even trying to get our athletes in space, shouldn't that have been the entire gameplan against this Wyoming team? I'm concerned about the offense. Like Kliff, so this makes sense, I am worried about Kittley calling plays after his initial script, and I think he gives up on the run game too quickly.
For the film, I couldn't find a full game anywhere, thanks a lot CBS, so that really limited the offensive clips I wanted to share, but if you have a question about any particular play/situation, ask away.
This Shough picked turned the game, and it drives me insane because it was totally unnecessary. I want to point out that I thought the the offensive line protected really well all game, that was a strength of Hamby's unit at WKU, nice to see it translate. I am still very concerned about their ability to create a viable running game. It's 2nd and short, I get the shot play idea here, but if it's not there at all, run or take the sack! This is one of the most difficult throws, the deep out, Shough was nearly picked on this same concept twice, and has never really shown the ability to hit this consistently. Donovan was really good at it. If you are going to throw this, you absolutely cannot miss short and inside... he missed short and inside. We have a ball game. It's difficult for me to fathom that your 6th year QB took this risk in this situation and that these deep outs kept getting called by the OC. If this is a 15 yard sack, Tech probably wins this game.
It's not fair to show this many bad defensive plays when the offense was mostly to blame for the loss, I would've expected Tech to win if Wyoming scored on every single offensive possession after going up 17-0, but I think some of the things we see from the defense in these clips may have more of an impact in games going forward. I know a lot will be made by the lack of production from defensive line, after all of the hype, but I put these clips together to focus on inside linebacker play, so focus on those two when watching.
I know these guys were put in a tough position after Rodriguez went down, but they must improve this week for us to have a chance. Notice how easily influenced they are by meaningless movement and not reading their keys. This leaves them out of position to make plays, late to fill gaps, and opens gaps easily found by the Wyoming run game. They played incredibly undisciplined and hoped to make up for it with athleticism, in the words of Andy Dwyer when summarizing Rambo, it did not go well! This can be improved with reps and film study, but it needs to happen very quickly. It's somewhat fitting for this night that one of the areas of concern we were told not to worry about almost immediately turned out to be a huge problem. You can see why DeRuyter kept blitzing them, it was their only chance to actually make a play.
I included the last two plays here because I wanted to say that I thought the safety blitz was a perfect call. You did not want to allow their QB to improvise, force him into a quick/easy decision and cover that decision. It's a good play call from Wyoming, that TE switch is not easy to cover in man, and it totally fools our safeties. They both take the outbreaking one, leaving the easiest throw on the field wide open, complete disaster. I assume this is Owens fault, based on alignment, but I can't know for sure. Unfortunate for the guy we wanted back there for his coverage skills. Maybe I'm being nitpicky, but Rabbit has to jump and make himself as big as possible on this blitz when he realizes he's not gonna get there in time. Instead he makes himself even smaller and provides a throwing lane for the QB. If it could go wrong, it did.
The game was over when they scored, but the two point play was obviously impacted by the touchdown. Look at the LBs discussing TE alignment up until the snap, look where Owens is lined up!! Totally in his head about the last play, not thinking about situation, and totally takes himself out of the play. I was screaming at the TV for McGuire to call a timeout. And, because this was the type of night it turned out to be, where is Wyoming running the ball? Right where Owens should be filling that gap.
Ultimately, as much as no one wants to hear this, I think Saturday night can be categorized as “one of those nights.” You play that game 1000 times, after going up 17-0, Tech loses one time. It's not an excuse, but sometimes it happens. Between the Favrean/Mahomesian plays their qb made, Shough slipping on, would be, first down run, Bradley’s goal line drop, having a made field goal chalked off due to ref incompetence, to even some of the penalties, if it could go wrong, it did. What makes that hard to take is that you really haven’t had one of these games under McGuire, and we probably thought those days were behind us, but they are not.
Again, no one wants to hear this because Saturday was a complete and utter disaster, but this loss does not sink the season. 2016 OSU, 2020 ISU, anecdotally, my best season as a coach started 1-2 with two very disappointing losses but ended in the state quarterfinals. Sometimes something like this can give coaches and teams a clarity that will payoff in the long run. I still believe in McGuire and Co and will continue to support, we’ve seen too much good, but the good vibes are over and the hype train has crashed, and we need to see, like we did last season to be fair to them, that this coaching staff has some answers.
