Texas Tech Struggles with Central Arkansas, Red Raiders Win 42-35

Thing this is going to be a fun ride this year? Yeah, me too. I mentioned this week that Central Arkansas wasn't a bad team and Steve Campbell was a really good coach who won a ton of games at Mississippi Gulf Coast. Still, you really like to see a better showing from Texas Tech, a team that a lot of you expected to see win 9 games. With the defense just giving long and sustained drives, the expectation that the defense is going to be significantly better just isn't happening.

With two and a half minutes, Central Arkansas was within a touchdown.

The good part is that the offense very much started to click in the second half, largely because Bradley Marquez was simply spectacular.

Really. Marquez saved the game, with a huge 3rd down conversion in Texas Tech's final drive and 184 yards receiving and 2 touchdowns.

But there will be things to work on this week. The defense is clearly a problem. A significant problem.

Webb's performance seemed uneven at times, throwing ill-timed interceptions, but there were times where he seemed really spectacular.

I'm still not sure how to address the defense. I keep going over it and I just don't know how this is going to work out over the course of the year.

The penalties are still there and it's frustrating to watch a team that has potential just throw it away with ill-timed hits and a simple lack of thinking. Kaster's late hit at the end of the game seemed to epitomize that.

There's a lot of work to do Red Raiders.