I'm at somewhat of a loss as I think most of you guys are.
Here's the thing that bothers me the most, it's that we cannot beat a team of comparable talent(I say that with the thought that we should be better than Colorado considering the state of their program two years ago, but we may not be) at home. I'm not sure whether to blame the coaching or the players and I'd like to think there's plenty of blame to go around.
Random Thoughts (please keep in mind that I haven't watched any of the game and these thoughts are based on a beer induced haze 30 minutes that began after the game):
- Does anyone else think that Crabtree could do a better job of fighting for certain passes? I thought on one of the Harrell interceptions that he should have fought for the ball a little more. I know, he's a freshman and he's unbelievable, but I keep thinking that he should be doing a better job of using his body to protect the defender from the ball. He's still amazing and his touchdown catch was a thing of beauty and he's still immensely talented, but dammit.
- Here's my problem, it's that I'm not upset. I'm extremely disappointed, but not upset. I should be raging mad, but I'm not and that makes me just a tad bit sad.
- I stayed until the absolute bitter end and at the end of the game as I was discussing it with my brother-in-law and friends was that Texas Tech didn't do two things:
- Stop the run.
- Do not turn the ball over.
Isn't it just that easy? I even said that Texas Tech should stop the run at all costs, mentioned stuff about it being a mantra, but that just didn't happen. As far as the turnovers, it's a basic premise of football 101, anytime a team loses the turnover battle, you can expect to lose the game. That part of football is fairly simple, but also incredibly frustrating.
- I'm beginning to think that it's not the jockey, but it's the horses. I've been wanting to place blame on Leach for the lack of offensive creativity and sometimes stagnant offense and Setencich the lack of a scheme or aggressiveness and McNeill to a certain extent. I'm not so sure that's completely accurate anymore. It's not as if none of those things have happened, because I think they have at some point, but we've gotten to the point where the players deserve as much blame as the staff. I realize that they are young, but they are talented. If we want more experienced guys on the field who aren't as talented then I'm sure that Leach and McNeill can do that as well.
What's the best way to protect a defense that has a lot of holes? Play it safe and play it conventional. Coaches are in a bad spot. If they let the players loose and expose the defense or they can choose to play it safe and hope that conventional stops the opposing team.
Harrell, the offensive line, line, the lack of a running game (whether that be on Woods, Leach or someone else), the lack the receivers to get open at times (once again, whether that be the receivers or Riley or Leach), the inability to stop the run when it's fairly obvious that Cody Hawkins can't throw the ball down the field to save his life, and the lack of ability to consistently get stops all seem like correctable issues, but I'm not sure who to blame. I've leaned one way all season, and now I might start to lean another.
- Do you want to know when an opposing team thinks that your defense is soft? They go for it on 4th down twice and get it twice in your own territory. The most disheartening, Colorado goes for it on 4th down from the 2 yard line and this was after a run for no gain and an incomplete pass. I'm sure that Colorado thought that if they were going to need to score touchdowns to win the game, but that also means that their staff also thought that they had a pretty good chance at getting a touchdown. So essentially, after failing for two plays, CU still thought they could get a touchdown. That hurts.
- Does anyone else think that this quote about Harrell and the offense is depressing:
"Missouri kind of laid the framework that if you get pressure and guys in (Harrell's) face that he'll throw the ball but be a little sporadic," defensive tackle George Hypolite said. "When he's able to set his feet and sit in the backfield and has time, he's a great quarterback and will pick anybody apart. He did a good job of getting the ball out when he had to, but our (defensive backs) did a great job of giving our guys time to get to him and get him on the ground."
We all knew it and apparently Colorado knew it, so why didn't Harrell, Leach and company do something to stop it?
- I did think that Leach did a better job of calling Saturday's game, but I also thought that by continuing to ignore the running game is part of Harrell's problems. Without any sort of consistent running game for two weeks in a row, why should teams even remotely respect that goes on out of the backfield? Run a little more and there's a better than zero chance that the middle of the field opens up for Harrell.
As I watched the game there was one rushing play that frustrated the hell out of me, where it was Texas Tech's last drive of the game and which would eventually lead to a touchdown for Ed Britton, but the down in question was 2nd down with 10 yards to go and Leach decides to hand the ball off to Kobey Lewis, the smallest running back, for a 1 yard gain. Here's the progression of plays:
T 4-3 C28 Timeout Texas Tech, clock 03:36.
T 4-3 C28 Harrell, Graham rush for 7 yards to the CU21, 1ST DOWN TT.
T 1-10 C21 Harrell, Graham pass incomplete to Britton, Edward.
T 2-10 C21 Lewis, Kobey rush for 1 yard to the CU20 (Nicolas, Brandon).
T 3-9 C20 Harrell, Graham pass complete to Amendola, Danny for 5 yards to the CU15 (Brown, Cha'pelle).
T 4-4 C15 Timeout Texas Tech, clock 02:43.At the time, this seemed like an eternity, sitting there nervously and wondering why Leach would decide to run the ball here.