This is going to ramble and that’s probably because I’m writing this at 4 am, but I want to go with this format over what I usually do on Sunday’s, so bear with me here.
There was a ton that I hated about last night, and I’m sure you had a ton too, but I’m going to try to regroup here.
Five interceptions from three different quarterbacks on the night you celebrate the best one you've ever had is just flat out laughable. Behren Morton had his “welcome to the Big 12” game and looked awful with his three picks and having only completed something like four passes in the first half.
That being said, he was definitely the best quarterback out there and it wasn’t particularly close. He once again showed the fact that he has the football IQ to move around a collapsed pocket, which there were plenty of yesterday. That’s something that I haven’t seen from Donovan Smith and Tyler Shough.
The other quarterbacks were just bad, but Smith looked better than the returning Shough, who I feel like we’ve seen the extent of. Smith had a dropped touchdown pass and was tossed in some unfortunate situations, like the one that led to the interception. I hate the fact that they’re doing this quarterback rotation stuff, it just doesn’t make much sense to me.
Shough was thrusted in a pretty soft-landing spot in garbage time for his first action since opening night where he only made it a quarter and on the first play he throws a pick-six, something that feels almost synonymous with him at this point. I don’t want to bury the guy because I know that he’s worked extremely hard to get back to where he is, but man, it was rough yesterday.
I feel like this stretch of tweets from the RRS Twitter account just sums it up perfectly. (CC @B. Soliz)
Enough quarterback talk, I want to talk about that awful performance from the O-Line that without a doubt killed Morton, Smith, & Shough’s chances back there last night.
Matt Keeler, who I know is in for the hurt Mills, really got worked yesterday and it wasn’t pretty. Caleb Rogers on the other side wasn’t good either and when both tackles are getting blown by on damn near every play, it’s a long day back there.
This is going to be a group that really can develop over the long term and it feels like when they go, this offense goes, except for the first half in Stillwater when Behren put the team on his back.
I seriously think I could’ve counted the number of clean pockets in the first half on both my hands, it was that bad.
On the other side of the ball, the Red Raiders got worked on the ground by Richard Reese, who is going to be a really big problem over the next two seasons before he moves onto greener pastures.
Both times the Red Raiders have faced small, shifty backs this season, they have gotten absolutely destroyed. Deuce did it in Manhattan and now we saw it firsthand that Reese can do it too.
I’ve grown accustomed to a better run defense this season, but the defense had their worst performance of the season on a pretty bad night. Just felt like nothing was going to go their way.
It really felt like Tech never caught a break yesterday between the phantom DPI on Rayshad Williams in the end zone, to the 50/50 ball that was ruled an interception in the endzone. It was infuriating.
Overall, I think that this game serves as a reminder to keep a level head as I think a lot of us (myself & the rest of the staff) got ahead of ourselves when picking this one, too wrapped up in the moment and hype of blowing out a lowly WVU team. These types of games are going to happen when coming off the heels of an awful passed decade and into hopefully a new era. Building a program doesn’t happen overnight and we were bluntly reminded of that last night.
I know that this team will put up a fight in Ft. Worth and Joey really has these guys believing, it’s just a matter of time.
Thanks for sticking around and reading my really tired thoughts. I’ve really enjoyed covering Tech football this year and I couldn’t do it without y’all reading every day, so thank you and let’s have a better weekend next week.
There was a ton that I hated about last night, and I’m sure you had a ton too, but I’m going to try to regroup here.
Five interceptions from three different quarterbacks on the night you celebrate the best one you've ever had is just flat out laughable. Behren Morton had his “welcome to the Big 12” game and looked awful with his three picks and having only completed something like four passes in the first half.
That being said, he was definitely the best quarterback out there and it wasn’t particularly close. He once again showed the fact that he has the football IQ to move around a collapsed pocket, which there were plenty of yesterday. That’s something that I haven’t seen from Donovan Smith and Tyler Shough.
The other quarterbacks were just bad, but Smith looked better than the returning Shough, who I feel like we’ve seen the extent of. Smith had a dropped touchdown pass and was tossed in some unfortunate situations, like the one that led to the interception. I hate the fact that they’re doing this quarterback rotation stuff, it just doesn’t make much sense to me.
Shough was thrusted in a pretty soft-landing spot in garbage time for his first action since opening night where he only made it a quarter and on the first play he throws a pick-six, something that feels almost synonymous with him at this point. I don’t want to bury the guy because I know that he’s worked extremely hard to get back to where he is, but man, it was rough yesterday.
I feel like this stretch of tweets from the RRS Twitter account just sums it up perfectly. (CC @B. Soliz)
Enough quarterback talk, I want to talk about that awful performance from the O-Line that without a doubt killed Morton, Smith, & Shough’s chances back there last night.
Matt Keeler, who I know is in for the hurt Mills, really got worked yesterday and it wasn’t pretty. Caleb Rogers on the other side wasn’t good either and when both tackles are getting blown by on damn near every play, it’s a long day back there.
This is going to be a group that really can develop over the long term and it feels like when they go, this offense goes, except for the first half in Stillwater when Behren put the team on his back.
I seriously think I could’ve counted the number of clean pockets in the first half on both my hands, it was that bad.
On the other side of the ball, the Red Raiders got worked on the ground by Richard Reese, who is going to be a really big problem over the next two seasons before he moves onto greener pastures.
Both times the Red Raiders have faced small, shifty backs this season, they have gotten absolutely destroyed. Deuce did it in Manhattan and now we saw it firsthand that Reese can do it too.
I’ve grown accustomed to a better run defense this season, but the defense had their worst performance of the season on a pretty bad night. Just felt like nothing was going to go their way.
It really felt like Tech never caught a break yesterday between the phantom DPI on Rayshad Williams in the end zone, to the 50/50 ball that was ruled an interception in the endzone. It was infuriating.
Overall, I think that this game serves as a reminder to keep a level head as I think a lot of us (myself & the rest of the staff) got ahead of ourselves when picking this one, too wrapped up in the moment and hype of blowing out a lowly WVU team. These types of games are going to happen when coming off the heels of an awful passed decade and into hopefully a new era. Building a program doesn’t happen overnight and we were bluntly reminded of that last night.
I know that this team will put up a fight in Ft. Worth and Joey really has these guys believing, it’s just a matter of time.
Thanks for sticking around and reading my really tired thoughts. I’ve really enjoyed covering Tech football this year and I couldn’t do it without y’all reading every day, so thank you and let’s have a better weekend next week.
