Grades | Texas Tech Red Raiders 45, Baylor Bears 52

Everything else was just fine. But the interceptions and the fumble just are not acceptable. QB Seth Doege passed for 8.98 yards per attempt, completed 75% of his passes and had three touchdowns, but he also had four costly turnovers. Those turnovers, especially those that were in the Texas Tech redzone is what lost this game. You just can't give the ball away so much without it costing you in the end. The interception into double-coverage was really the only inexcusable interception, but ultimately, it falls on Doege to hold onto that ball and not give it away. It stinks that one of those interceptions glances off of a helmet but he has to be more careful than that.

Overall, when your team runs for 208 yards, that means that some holes opened up and there was room to run. No turnovers by the running backs the combination of Kenny Williams and Sadale Foster is very nice. The 208 yards rushing includes 58 by Doege, but if you include Williams 11 yards out of the backfield and you've got a team that had the running back position total 170 yards and was highly effective. If the running game had been this effective during conference play, then the team probably wins more games. Baylor's rush defense is abysmal, so let's not heap the praise on too much, but this group played well.

I can't think of many drops, other than maybe the last play of the game where Eric Ward was going to have to make a huge play to keep the team alive, but this was the Moore and Ward show and they were both spectacular. No other player had more than 2 catches other than Moore and Ward, so this was about those two players and they played about as well as could be expected. I could never figure out how Ward was injured, but he didn't seem like he was hurting in the second half.

As a unit, sorta like the running backs, they played about as well as you could ask. Lots of players subbed in and out and Tuberville is right, LaAdrian Waddle and Terry McDaniel both played when they probably should not have, but this game means something to them and that means something to me. This is, most likely, the last game other than the bowl game, that those two plus Deveric Gallington will play again. They are most likely not NFL bound and they wanted their team to win despite being injured.

If it were not for Hyder, I don't know what this grade would be, but this defense is in a bad way. The line gave up 278 yards on the ground and had zero sacks for the day. If it weren't for Hyder, the defensive line play would be largely forgettable. Few sacks, few big plays and few turnovers, if any. I thought that Delvon Simmons played well in parts. If he had Hyder's motor, Simmons would be unstoppable. One day, Simmons will figure that out. Leon Mackey continues to be a liability for the most part. The defensive ends really don't create any sort of rush, except for Dartwan Bush, and that's largely disappointing. These players need to be better otherwise you won't see any improvement from the defense.

This is tricky because there were many, many plays where the linebackers were out of position and continued to do what they've done all year, which is take themselves out of plays. But I think that was Sam Eguavoen's best game and Blake Dees played about as well as I can recall. But there were too many plays where the linebackers couldn't or didn't make any plays and that's when Baylor's running backs had huge chunks of yards. Linebackers have to fill those gaps. I don't know what Will Smith is going to have to do during the offseason to be better. Maybe DC Art Kaufman had it right in spring practice in that Smith is made to play outside linebacker and just isn't adjusting to the middle like we all wanted. Dees is this team's most sound linebacker and Eguavoen is going to be very solid. With spread offenses, most defenses take off their strongside linebacker in nickel situations, which would be Smith, and considering the teams that spread it out, that's not a lot of games for Smith to see the field. I don't know how Kaufman remedies this situation next year other than guys taking that step up and just being better with experience.

Man o' man. The cornerbacks were just abused and it was just about every one of them and the safties didn't fare too much better. I'd give this group an "F" in a normal situation, but I just don't feel like it because I like Davis and Johnson and Neboh. I can only think of a Eugene Neboh play that was a positive play that was broken up in the endzone. I think he had a couple of other pass breakups, one was just putting up his hand, but even the return of Cornelius Douglas didn't help all that much. The safeties failed to get deep at the end of the first half and that was a devastating score. Cody Davis was in coverage and he wasn't even close to the receiver. I'm not sure he should have had the Baylor receiver that just walked into the endzone with 0:11 remaining in the first half, but it sure looked like he should have and that sort of play is inexcusable. I don't know who fills the void for Davis and D.J. Johnson, despite their warts. They aren't perfect, but I really don't know who is going to play safety next year as they've gotten almost all of the snaps at those spots. It's going to be scary.

Yea, so I'm not giving the coaching an "F" either because I'm weighing the offense, defense and the overall coaching. On the list of things that are wrong with this team, the offense is very much far down that list. I know that it is very easy to blame Neal Brown for all of the problems, but I can promise you that any alternative is not going to be as dynamic as Neal Brown. I'm pretty sure of that and you'll long for the days of Brown and his offense. The offense played well enough and 45 points should have been enough to win this game. It's the defense that's incredibly problematic. I think that DC Art Kaufman knows what he's doing, but there really aren't any big plays being produced by this group. This defense hasn't had any turnovers since TCU. The defense is giving up an average of 486 yards a game since TCU (does not include TCU). Just 6 games ago, we thought that Kaufman was the answer defensively, but at this point, I'm not sure if Tuberville has gotten the right guy yet again. Those first few games are looking like a mirage at this point. So I'm asking you to be realistic and appropriately critical. I'm not looking to absolve Brown, he has his faults offensively and there are times that he tries to be too cute, but overall, the list of things that concern me about this team starts on defense and continues on defense for a good while. The offensive line is probably my biggest concern offensively and that's a bit down my list of things to be concerned about. Is this thing trending up or is it trending down? I've got my answer.