Double-T Nation News:
I usually like to run down the offense and defense after a game, but since I didn't see this game and all I can rely upon is statistics, I thought that at the very least I'd take a close look at the play-by-play for both the offense and the defense. That will probably come a little bit later this morning.
My initial reaction is that I'm not going to panic. Not yet. It was talked about during the game thread, that perhaps this is exactly what we need, a litle wake-up call before having to go on the road to face an offensively gifted Nevada team.
Let's get to those game stories.
Texas Tech Football:
Texas Tech beat the Eastern Washington Eagles 49-24 (boxscore) and not acceptable seems to be the general theme of the team of the day. There's quite a few small stories from the LAJ, and I think I've been getting up too early and beating the main stories of the day. In any event, you have a story from the EWU perspective, the record-setting penalties, an editorial (I think, but there's no byline) as to why you don't play good teams to start the year, and Texas Tech's "spotty" performance. Publicly, Captain Leach is still optimistic about this year's team:
"I think they’ll respond and I’m optimistic they will, because I’m still optimistic about this team," Leach said. "I just felt like we wouldn’t waste as many opportunities and as many plays as we did this game. But we did, and now we have to learn from it and go from there."
Perhaps the most informative bit from Don Williams of the LAJ is the Red Raiders Football Notebook, where we have injury updates on Louis Vasquez and McKinner Dixon, who both went out and finished the game. Also, Leach is wondering what happened with the kicking game:
"I’m curious whether the ball’s getting up quickly enough," Tech coach Mike Leach said. "That’d be the first thing I’d look for, but I don’t know, because I don’t have the film." Asked whether the job would be a battle again, Leach said, "I don’t think it ever was not a battle, but I think it still is. We have to look at the protection, we have to look at the operation time, we have to look at whether (the ball) got up and look at his steps. Strength of leg’s not a problem. If he touches it, it flies. You’ve just got to make it fly the right way."
And Leach comments on the running game in general and Shannon Woods' attempt to get the ball across in the 2nd quarter:
"I felt like we could have jammed the ball in there a little better," Leach said. "I thought we could have slammed it in. Trying to stick the ball across was boneheaded, even though he was down. I kind of wish I would have got a few more snaps for Baron and Crawford. I think they complement each other pretty well."
FWST's Dwain Price's title is that Texas Tech bumbles way to sloppy victory and I think that's pretty appropriate. Here's Eric Morris on facing adversity against EWU:
"We didn’t respond very well to adversity," said Morris, who caught nine passes for 164 yards. "It’s something that’s probably going to open our eyes. We had entirely too many penalties. We’re not going to sit down and get down on ourselves, but we have higher expectations for ourselves."
It's also nice to hear that the leader of the defense, linebacker Brian Duncan, isn't happy with yesterday's performance:
"It’s not at all acceptable," linebacker Brian Duncan said of the Red Raiders’ performance. "As a defense we’re not proud of that at all. We take it personal."
DMN's Brandon George says the win doesn't come easy for No. 12 Texas Tech as well as a notebook, which focuses on the effective running game, Vasquez's in jury and the rare extra-point miss.
Fox34 has some excellent video/highlights of last night's game as well as KCBD 11 with footage and a follow-up at the stadium (click the camera to the right of the first paragraph). This only makes me wonder why we (the "we" being fans) can't get this game via PPV. If Fox34 is able to get this quality footage immediately, I'm not sure if the school realizes how happy you would make quite a few Texas Tech fans if they could have seen last night's game, rather than listen to a very weak DFW signal that crapped out once the sun went down and with little or no other options except to hit refresh on a game-cast. I think you'd find quite a few people willing to pay to watch that game.