Texas Tech falls despite outplaying longhorns

The texas longhorns got the victory but looked very average doing it. As a matter of fact a blown no-call on a helmet to helmet by Sergio Kindle on Taylor Potts may have cost Texas Tech the game. On that play Potts fumbled and UT recovered and went on to score. Even the announcers said it was definitely a blown no-call and Sports Center reiterated it later in the night.

You must also take into consideration that Texas Tech was not even close to being at full strength. Sophomore walk-on Brett Dewhurst started at safety instead of Franklin Mitchem who is injured, and true freshman D.J. Johnson went in at cornerback when starter LaRon Moore had to come out in the second half. That wasn't all missing from the defense either. Starting defensive end Ra'jon Henley missed the game due to an injury and the other defensive end, Brandon Sharpe, was suspended for the game. In addition Texas Tech's best receiver, Detron Lewis, only played a few plays in the first series. Apparently he aggravated a hamstring injury that kept him out of most of the Rice game as well.

When you look at the stats Tech went to Austin and outplayed the horns. Tech had 25 first downs on 81 plays while the horns had 24 on 76 plays. The Red Raiders out gained ut by 115 yards (447-332). Texas Tech averaged 5.5 yards per play to ut’s 4.4.

Also worthy of mention is that Heisman candidate colt mccoy was absolutely out played by Taylor Potts. Potts threw three times as many TD’s, half as many interceptions and over twice as many yards. Potts had 447 passing yards with three TD’s and only one INT to mccoy’s 200 passing yards with only one TD and two INT’s. If you knew nothing of either QB except that one was a Heisman Candidate and one was not you would have thought Potts was the one in the running for the Heisman.

The difference in the game really came down to the special teams TD by shipley on a punt return and the no call mentioned earlier. After watching this game I came to two conclusions. First the texas longhorns are not the #2 team in the country. Second the Red Raiders are much better than I would have ever expected.