Between the third and fourth quarters of the season opener, Texas Tech football fans gazed southward into the sky at a jaw-dropping drone show.
The people in charge alternately conjured a giant Double T, the adidas and Patrick Mahomes Gladiator logos, a Guns Up hand sign and a script Red Raiders. Many in a capacity crowd at Jones AT&T Stadium had come to see the grandeur of the new south end zone building. The scarlet-lights show just added to it.
The drone coordinator had a better Saturday night than Tim DeRuyter.
Until freshman defensive tackle Jayden Cofield saved the game by stopping a two-point conversion try in overtime, Texas Tech’s 52-51 victory over Abilene Christian had to be a nightmare for the Red Raiders’ defensive coordinator. Maverick McIvor sliced and diced a young Texas Tech secondary with 506 passing yards, the lion’s share of the 615 yards the Wildcats put up.
“Everything that could go wrong in the back end, at different times did,” said Tech coach Joey McGuire, who was pleased nevertheless that the Red Raiders avoided a humiliating loss.
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Texas Tech football exes took it to the Red Raiders
Tech might not face a more motivated team this year, given that ACU coach Keith Patterson and offensive skill players McIvor, Nehemiah Martinez, Trey Cleveland and Jed Castles once sported Red Raider colors, and ACU running back Isaiah Johnson’s from Lubbock-Cooper. Martinez, Cleveland and Castles combined for 16 catches, 195 yards and two touchdowns, and Johnson ran for three TDs.
Johnson’s game-tying, 5-yard TD late in the fourth quarter — a determined, tackle-shedding run — embodied their tenacity.
The fact the guys the Red Raiders kept were played off their feet by the guys they let go to an FCS program doesn’t speak well of the current cast, especially the defense.
Tech’s pass defense — the rush up front, the communication and playmaking on the back end — was alarmingly bad. Tried to warn you that some of that was to be expected. You don’t lose two longtime starters at defensive tackle, two longtime starters at cornerback and not pay a certain price.
ACU exposes Texas Tech football defensive line, secondary
Tech coaches repeated for weeks they were deep at defensive tackle with seven who could play. The Red Raiders did, in fact, play seven in the opener, but is that because they lack two who can really play, two a coach doesn’t want to take off the field? That’s a question at least for the moment. Of the seven, three came with modest credentials from group-of-five schools and three are sophomores or freshmen being counted on for the first time.
The Tech secondary was missing cornerback Bralyn Lux on Saturday with a thigh injury, which only complicated matters. It was a young group to start with. Talented, but young. Last week, we wrote, “Maybe it’ll work out, but it’s a set of circumstances fraught with potential for breakdowns.”
Guess I nailed that one.
Three of McIvor’s touchdowns were 31 yards to Castles, 71 yards to Blayne Taylor and 30 yards to Martinez. None were well-covered, and the one to Taylor looked like a bust.
“We definitely have got to improve in a hurry in the secondary,” McGuire said, “especially with the team that we’re about to play (Washington State) and then the next week playing UNT. It was a mixture of a couple of times we had good calls and we didn’t communicate. I thought early in the game, that was the deal, and then there were different times we were on our heels.
“They put a lot of pressure on us. The tough thing is we got no pressure, but it was hard to get pressure because that ball was coming out.”
Washington State will want to attack Tech the same way, not just because of how poorly the Red Raiders defended the pass in the opener. WSU beat Portland State 70-30 Saturday. Quarterback John Mateer threw for 352 yards and five touchdowns. Two of his receivers topped 100 yards.
The Red Raiders go there. In the meantime, everyone should stop talking for a while about the damage the Red Raiders can inflict here against a soft home schedule.
If the Red Raiders aren’t safe against an FCS team that went 5-6 last year, they aren’t safe against anybody, anywhere.
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This article originally appeared on Lubbock Avalanche-Journal: This isn’t the ‘D’ the Texas Tech football staff promised | Don Williams
