Matador Mailbag: What is Texas Tech’s ceiling?

I won’t bother with the long winding intro, let’s get right into the meat of this! You had questions, I have all the answers. Here. We. Go.

Who will be our number two in receiving yards?

This is a great, and critical question after we saw Ezukanma dominate on Saturday. Kaylon Geiger is going to be a popular answer to this question, but allow me to overreact to a trend we saw Saturday and go with Travis Koontz.

Cumbie wants to utilize the TE, and with how the offensive line played he is going to need another big body out there to chip and help out. That plus Koontz’s talent and big frame make him the security blanket Shough can lean on as teams try to bracket Ezukanma. Saturday was a weird game for the receiving corp, but a lot of their struggles fell on the line being unable to block. In any scenario, don’t expect it to be quite as one sided despite how dominate Eazy is.

What is Tech’s ceiling/what will tech’s record be?

We received a lot of these record questions, which makes sense because after Saturday Tech fans have to be feeling better about making a bowl and are wanting to know about the upper limit. Tech will be 3-0 heading into Texas, I can’t pretend to be afraid of the next two games so sue me, which means the record will fall entirely on the Big 12 slate.

The ceiling I will set at 10-2, the floor is going to be 6-6. Oklahoma and Iowa State did not look invincible in week one, but Texas looked pretty good. Out of those three, I don’t see how you don’t drop at least 2 losses. On the lower side, Tech should beat Baylor, Kansas, and West Virginia/Kansas State. I don’t see you dropping out of bowl contention right now, call me optimistic all you want.

My project where things stand right now: 8-4 with a date in the Alamo Bowl.

What was up with the returners?

Yeah for a lot of the night every kick or punt was an adventure. Townsend misfielded a bunch of the kickoffs, and I felt like the punt returners gave up on a few punts they should have tried to return. Luckily, besides the onside kick, they avoided disaster. But you really would want more from your return game than narrowly avoiding turning the ball over.