Instant Reaction: Texas Tech vs. Oklahoma

At the end of the day, I didn’t expect to beat Oklahoma. In fact, I was certain we’d lose by 13ish points, but it still hurts when you take a loss in a close game. I felt like Kingsbury coached a fairly solid game, but we didn’t have the horses to beat Oklahoma. Whereas last week was extremely brutal, I wouldn’t call out the refs as super biased because I felt like it was a mostly fair game. The unfortunate reality is that Oklahoma is loaded on the offensive line, has a physical running game, and skill players galore. Kyler Murray is no doubt a spectacular player, and I’m thrilled that he’s got $5M reasons to play baseball next year. We’ll hop into specifics below.

Alan Bowman - Might as well address the elephant in the room. Bowman clearly had a flare up of his lung-deal. The announcers showed a few clips at halftime and it’s obvious he wasn’t good to go in the second half. At this point, we can hope he’s healthy for the Texas game, but I’m not gonna count on it. Bowman had an extraordinary first half and we can all wonder what would’ve happened if he stayed healthy.

Jett Duffey - It’s pretty clear he’s not a great thrower of the football and doesn’t see the game like Bowman does. Although, I’ll credit his ability to run the ball because he tends to come up big when we need him. I’d expect Todd Orlando is licking his chops thinking about Duffey though.

Da’Leon Ward - I felt like he played pretty well, and we should’ve run him more. Clearly, Kingsbury has completely abandoned the run at this point in the season. Which is very disappointing. Ta’Zhawn Henry also had a few flashy plays that were important in this one. Tre King is still MIA though.

Antoine Wesley - He went off for a casual 200+ yards, and has over 1,000 yards on the season. He’s going to wind up having a Michael Crabtree-esque season and we better pay closer attention to what’s happening.

Offensive Line - Overall, I felt like this group gave our QBs plenty of time in the pocket. Oklahoma definitely has some studs on the defensive-line and this group gave us a fighters chance.

Dakota Allen - Uh, we need him back like ASAP. Seriously.

Vaunghte Dorsey - Who’d have guessed that he’d have had two interceptions, a huge sack, and multiple gigantic hits. He’s been nothing short of a perfect Red Raider since coming from Junior College and we’re going to miss him next year.

Adrian Frye - Outside of a bogus catch that the refs went, “call stands,” on Frye was outstanding in this game. He regularly locked up who he covered and had several key deflections.

Seth Collins - I really like this guy, let me be clear on that, but we’ve gotta chill out on having him throw the ball. It’s obvious that the defensive knows what he’s doing on these types of plays so Kingsbury needs to relax with those play-calls.

Special Teams - Overall, this group had an outstanding game. Hatfield was perfect, Panazzolo boomed several punts, Bowman didn’t do anything wreckless. I was very happy with this unit today.

In conclusion, this one stings but not horribly bad. I expect to see us bounce back against Texas and win that game. We’ve got the right team in place, but we’re not quite ready for primetime. One final note though, for all the fans who bailed on the game when it was still one-score.....what in the world was that? Don’t get me wrong, I’ve watched the same team as you have, but you can’t bail when it’s close. Clearly, this is a bigger problem that we all need to acknowledge. Until next time - Wreck ‘Em.

NOTE: My WiFi failed me last night, sorry everyone.