1. Killer Instinct
Kliff Kingsbury lamented his team's lack of a killer instinct following Texas Tech's win over Sam Houston State on Saturday.
"I thought the second half (the defense) played tremendous there holding them scoreless for about the third quarter," he said. "It was 59-31, we had the ball, had a chance to really put it away, and just no killer instinct on offense. Very similar to last year where we just never finished games."
The Red Raiders' head man couldn't quite put his finger on the reason, but acknowledged that it's something that has to improve moving forward into 2015.
"We've got to find it, though," Kingsbury said. "I think Pat (Mahomes) has some of it in him. I think some of those receivers, when that ball is there and it's in your hands, those running backs, we've got to catch it and we've got to finish the game."
The sad truth is that Saturday was a new experience to a lot of the players on the field for Texas Tech. Entering this weekend, it had been 18 games, by my count, since the Red Raiders successfully demonstrated a killer instinct.
October 19, 2013. No. 16 Texas Tech rallied from a 10-point second-half deficit to top West Virginia 37-27.
The Red Raiders took a three-point lead in the fourth quarter after a seven-play, 84-yard drive capped off by a one-yard Kenny Williams touchdown run. The Mountaineers couldn't get anything going offensively on their next two drives, and punted the ball back to Texas Tech with about five minutes left to play.
Davis Webb and the offense engineered a 10-play, 69-yard touchdown drive that not only put them up double-digits but also ate 3:29 off the clock and sealed the victory. That was a boot-on-the-throad-and-finish-them moment.
Since that point? The Red Raiders are 6-13, wins against Arizona State, Central Arkansas, UTEP, Kansas, Iowa State and Sam Houston State -- just two of those wins were by more than one score. Quite simply, the players on in this program haven't had much of a chance to hone that killer instinct over the last two years.
2. Pat Mahomes
Kliff Kingsbury has been Texas Tech's head football coach for 33 months, and the program has been without a publicly acknowledged starting quarterback for roughly 19 of them. He's coached 26 games so far and has entered nearly half (12) without a named starter.
I went back through all of Kingsbury's weekly press conferences and, unsurprisingly, he has been asked about the position in almost all of them.
There was an open competition for the job entering the 2013 season and Kingsbury remained mum on the starter up until the opener against SMU. Baker Mayfield won the job, thanks in part to an offseason injury to Michael Brewer, and seemingly had the job on lock down moving forward.
Mayfield sustained an injury of his own against Kansas, and Kingsbury said the following Monday that he didn't know at that point who would start against Iowa State the next week.
"Got to get (Mayfield) over here," he said. "See how he's moving around, see how he's feeling and take it from there."
Davis Webb notched his first career start five days later in a win over the Cyclones, completing 62.5 percent of his passes for 415 yards, three touchdowns and an interception.
Still, Kingsbury was non-commital on the quarterback position.
"Yeah, Baker, we'll get him over here today and see how he feels," he said. "Davis is good and Mike's (Brewer) good. So we'll see if we have all three available this week. We should know by the end of the week."
That continued the following week before the Red Raiders' road trip to Norman.
"We'll see," Kingsbury said. "We'll see how Baker feels and take it from there."
Finally, after Texas Tech's loss to Oklahoma, Kingsbury publicly committed to Webb.
"Davis will start this week," he said. "Yes, he's earned that with his play these last few weeks. So he'll get the nod this week."
That didn't last long, however. Following blowout losses to Oklahoma State and Kansas State, Kingsbury was back on script.
Before Baylor: "That's an interesting position to be in Week 11 and still have that (competition) going on. We'll get them both reps and see how it goes this week and then trot one of them out there."
Before Texas: "I have not. We'll figure that out and let them try it out Thursday."
The starter for the Red Raiders' bowl game against Arizona State was also a question mark.
Webb entered the 2014 season as the unquestioned starter and retained that status through the first eight games of the season, but was knocked out of the TCU game with an injury. Quarterback uncertainty returned and remained (officially) for the rest of the season and continued on into the 2014-15 offseason.
Twenty-six games into Kingsbury's tenure as head coach, three quarterbacks -- Mayfield, Webb and Pat Mahomes -- have started at least five consecutive but, due to injury or ineffectiveness, none have pushed that run to 10 or more.
To put it simply, the program has yet to enjoy a season of stability at the game's most important position. Predictably, the overall results at quarterback have been inconsistent.
That instability may finally be over.
No one is going to hand Mahomes a Heisman Trophy for putting up video game numbers against an FCS team, but he proved against Sam Houston State that his three-game run last season was no late-season fluke. He bridged the offseason gap that gave Webb issues in 2014, appeared to be in control at every moment and (outside of Le'Raven Clark) looked like the best player on the field.
Kingsbury was, of course, asked Monday if Mahomes would start against UTEP. He responded in the affirmative.
Hopefully that's the last time that question is asked for a long time.
3. Under-the-Radar Positives
Kliff Kingsbury lamented his team's lack of a killer instinct following Texas Tech's win over Sam Houston State on Saturday.
"I thought the second half (the defense) played tremendous there holding them scoreless for about the third quarter," he said. "It was 59-31, we had the ball, had a chance to really put it away, and just no killer instinct on offense. Very similar to last year where we just never finished games."
The Red Raiders' head man couldn't quite put his finger on the reason, but acknowledged that it's something that has to improve moving forward into 2015.
"We've got to find it, though," Kingsbury said. "I think Pat (Mahomes) has some of it in him. I think some of those receivers, when that ball is there and it's in your hands, those running backs, we've got to catch it and we've got to finish the game."
The sad truth is that Saturday was a new experience to a lot of the players on the field for Texas Tech. Entering this weekend, it had been 18 games, by my count, since the Red Raiders successfully demonstrated a killer instinct.
October 19, 2013. No. 16 Texas Tech rallied from a 10-point second-half deficit to top West Virginia 37-27.
The Red Raiders took a three-point lead in the fourth quarter after a seven-play, 84-yard drive capped off by a one-yard Kenny Williams touchdown run. The Mountaineers couldn't get anything going offensively on their next two drives, and punted the ball back to Texas Tech with about five minutes left to play.
Davis Webb and the offense engineered a 10-play, 69-yard touchdown drive that not only put them up double-digits but also ate 3:29 off the clock and sealed the victory. That was a boot-on-the-throad-and-finish-them moment.
Since that point? The Red Raiders are 6-13, wins against Arizona State, Central Arkansas, UTEP, Kansas, Iowa State and Sam Houston State -- just two of those wins were by more than one score. Quite simply, the players on in this program haven't had much of a chance to hone that killer instinct over the last two years.
2. Pat Mahomes
Kliff Kingsbury has been Texas Tech's head football coach for 33 months, and the program has been without a publicly acknowledged starting quarterback for roughly 19 of them. He's coached 26 games so far and has entered nearly half (12) without a named starter.
I went back through all of Kingsbury's weekly press conferences and, unsurprisingly, he has been asked about the position in almost all of them.
There was an open competition for the job entering the 2013 season and Kingsbury remained mum on the starter up until the opener against SMU. Baker Mayfield won the job, thanks in part to an offseason injury to Michael Brewer, and seemingly had the job on lock down moving forward.
Mayfield sustained an injury of his own against Kansas, and Kingsbury said the following Monday that he didn't know at that point who would start against Iowa State the next week.
"Got to get (Mayfield) over here," he said. "See how he's moving around, see how he's feeling and take it from there."
Davis Webb notched his first career start five days later in a win over the Cyclones, completing 62.5 percent of his passes for 415 yards, three touchdowns and an interception.
Still, Kingsbury was non-commital on the quarterback position.
"Yeah, Baker, we'll get him over here today and see how he feels," he said. "Davis is good and Mike's (Brewer) good. So we'll see if we have all three available this week. We should know by the end of the week."
That continued the following week before the Red Raiders' road trip to Norman.
"We'll see," Kingsbury said. "We'll see how Baker feels and take it from there."
Finally, after Texas Tech's loss to Oklahoma, Kingsbury publicly committed to Webb.
"Davis will start this week," he said. "Yes, he's earned that with his play these last few weeks. So he'll get the nod this week."
That didn't last long, however. Following blowout losses to Oklahoma State and Kansas State, Kingsbury was back on script.
Before Baylor: "That's an interesting position to be in Week 11 and still have that (competition) going on. We'll get them both reps and see how it goes this week and then trot one of them out there."
Before Texas: "I have not. We'll figure that out and let them try it out Thursday."
The starter for the Red Raiders' bowl game against Arizona State was also a question mark.
Webb entered the 2014 season as the unquestioned starter and retained that status through the first eight games of the season, but was knocked out of the TCU game with an injury. Quarterback uncertainty returned and remained (officially) for the rest of the season and continued on into the 2014-15 offseason.
Twenty-six games into Kingsbury's tenure as head coach, three quarterbacks -- Mayfield, Webb and Pat Mahomes -- have started at least five consecutive but, due to injury or ineffectiveness, none have pushed that run to 10 or more.
To put it simply, the program has yet to enjoy a season of stability at the game's most important position. Predictably, the overall results at quarterback have been inconsistent.
That instability may finally be over.
No one is going to hand Mahomes a Heisman Trophy for putting up video game numbers against an FCS team, but he proved against Sam Houston State that his three-game run last season was no late-season fluke. He bridged the offseason gap that gave Webb issues in 2014, appeared to be in control at every moment and (outside of Le'Raven Clark) looked like the best player on the field.
Kingsbury was, of course, asked Monday if Mahomes would start against UTEP. He responded in the affirmative.
Hopefully that's the last time that question is asked for a long time.
3. Under-the-Radar Positives
- Preseason FCS All-American P.J. Hall was a complete non-factor on Saturday. He was someone whose name came up quite a bit during last Monday's press conference, and the reigning Southland Conference Freshman of the Year left Lubbock with a paltry 2.5 tackles. The Bearkats had some individual players who gave the Red Raiders fits -- hello, LaDarius Brown -- but Hall was not one of them.
- Texas Tech's offensive coaches, from Kingsbury on down, talked all offseason about how poorly the team's receivers performed last season against press coverage. It was a huge point of emphasis over the offseason. Sam Houston State's defense is aggressive and didn't back down on Saturday, giving the Red Raiders a nice early look at how their wideouts had progressed against press-man. I'd say they did alright.
- There were several raised eyebrows when it became clear that Jah'Shawn Johnson was going to start alongside Keenon Ward at safety. The redshirt freshman doesn't have prototypical size and missed most of last season with an injury. He didn't seem to have any issues, logging five tackles, a TFL and a forced fumble.
- TCU -- Trevone Boykin is the best quarterback in the Big 12 until proven otherwise, and the Frogs easily had the league's best non-conference win in Week 1.
- Baylor -- The first half was ugly for the Bears' defense, but Phil Bennett's bunch clamped down after the break and turned the Ponies into glue. When Texas Tech plays Baylor on Oct. 3, the Bears will be coming off of games against Lamar and Rice while the Red Raiders will have played Arkansas and TCU.
- Oklahoma -- The Sooners did what they were supposed to and whipped an overmatched, Terry Bowden-led Akron squad. It will be very, very interesting to see how the Sooners perform on the road against Tennessee this weekend.
- West Virginia -- The 'Eers snapped Georgia Southern's 242-game scoring streak with a 44-0 shutout. Skyler Howard wasn't anything special at quarterback (16-of-25, 359 yards, 2 TD) but he may not have to be if WVU's defense continues to play at this level.
- Oklahoma State -- It certainly wasn't pretty, but the Pokes went on the road and slogged through an uninspired road win over a MAC team. That was a dumb game to schedule.
- Texas Tech -- There's a big part of me that feels dumb for putting the Red Raiders at No. 6 after they gave up 350 rushing yards to an FCS team. Then I remember how good Pat Mahomes has played since taking over as the team's starting quarterback and compare him to what the bottom four teams on this list have. Easy decision.
- Kansas State -- First-year starting quarterback Jesse Ertz suffered a potentially season-ending injury two-snaps into the 2015 season. His replacement has never started a game at quarterback. Ever. Good luck, Bill.
- Texas -- It's never a good sign when, after one game, a team's head coach is talking about evaluating every aspect of his program. That's where Charlie Strong is right now. Gulp.
- Iowa State -- The Cyclones coasted to a 31-7 win over Northern Iowa on Saturday. ISU barely toped 300 yards of offense, but it was enough to turn away the Panthers.
- Kansas -- Words fail me.
