How bad was Skip's play calling in the 2nd half against the MUTS?

[70TECHGRAD]

Well, it is 3rd down and goal from the 5 yard line. We need a TD and we win the game!! What do we do??? Here we go....fade route to the right corner of the end zone.....well, that DID NOT WORK!!!!
Ok, what did we do last year in this situation, AND IT WORKED?? We lined up in the "T" formation. Driskell faked a hand off to one of the running backs. The entire TECH team went to the left and Driskell ran to the right and went into the end zone, untouched, for a TD!!!!
Ok, here we go, 4th down, game on the line......fade route to the right corner of the end zone!! DAMN!!!

[Tech52]

Higgins has the capability to run the ball into the endzone. I wish we'd do that play you mentioned more often.

[JuBru]

That's just ridiculous. No, we DO NOT have to score every possession if our DC is worth anything at all. There are three parts to a team, O, D and ST. The D needs to do their part.



Again, ridiculous. Most of Tech's D stats are ranked in the 100's, nationally. IT IS ALL ON THE DEFENSE and more specifically, the DC and his coaches.

And, yeah, Tech scored 34, not zero.

btw, Still love your Holtz train gif but, at this point, Holtz is still very good for Tech's program.

For football in 2016 and beyond, we do. The defenses we face are as bad as us, except our offense is so poor we make them look like all-stars.

Flip side is, undoubtedly, our defense makes offenses look stellar, too.


Blame goes all a round, but as long as some are going to exclusively attack the poor defense, I'm going to exclusively attack the poor offense.

[theprofessor]

He didn't do "enough." We still lost. 500+ yards and only 3 TDs? That sucks. Goes right into HD's statement of not being able to close. Also: 1 receiver with triple digit yardage? High throws? Short throws? Over throws? Floating? Higgins got saved all night and still only had 61% completion.

We are not a power school. We are not part of the Alabama's and Ohio State's of the world. We have to score and we have to do it EVERY possession. We can afford a screw-up here and there, but never within the 5. Our lack of scoring is more problematic than a porous defense because you can't win a game with 0 points.

Holy cow. Only 61% completion? Luke McCown didn't complete 60% of his passes in any of his three seasons as the full-time starter. Neither did Matt Kubik. Or Zac Champion. Ross Jenkins did it once, as a senior. Colby Cameron was the most efficient at 69% in 2012. Cody Sokol completed 58% of his passes in Ruston. Jeff Driskel was at 62% last year. Higgins is at 63% right now with a 10-2 TD-to-INT ratio. He's on pace for the second-best QB season at Tech in the post-Rattay era. Some of you guys have to temper your expectations. Nobody in the country -- not even the great and powerful Texas Tech offense -- can score on every possession.

As far as one receiver with triple digits -- that receiver caught 17 balls for 200-plus yards. His No. 2 receiver had two catches for 87 yards before getting injured. So he found a new No. 2 receiver. Rhashid Bonnette caught eight passes for 94 yards. So his top three receivers combined for 27 receptions and 391 yards with three TDs. But it's not enough. You're insane.

[GonzoDawg]

To stick with the theme of the thread I'll ignore the fact that our defense was porous in the second half. That's not even debateable. However we can help our defense out by 1 rushing the ball and keeping the clock moving, thus limiting the number of possessions the opposing team gets against our defense. 2 calling plays with a higher chance of success in scoring situations. I don't think those 2 points are debatable either. Although I'm sure they will be. This loss is a head scratcher, we were once again the better team and lost. When that happens my opinion is that it's a coaching issue. I absolutely hate being 1-3 at this point but I do believe this team is capable of much better things this season.

[GonzoDawg]

Again it's not that the offense didn't perform well. But as the game goes on the gameplan has to adjust. Both sides on the ball have to help the other. No question the defense did not do their job. I don't know where they went but the disappeared in the second half. However the offense could have helped them out by managing the clock and scoring when they had their opportunities.

[johnnylightnin]

Holy cow...But it's not enough. You're insane.

You did say he did enough to win. Obviously, that's not true.

These great stats our counteracted by THE great stat: 1-3

If you watch the games you'll see that our offense doesn't look nearly as efficient in real life as it does on paper.

[NTXDawg]

While I agree that we should have pounded them into submission after going up 27-7. If skip did start calling run play and we lost (which is a very real possibility). then a whole bunch of you would have been screaming about how "conservative" and "playing not to lose" skip is.

[Tech52]

I didnt want him to start "pounding it out" on them. We just needed to run instead of pass a few times to move the chains. Gotta mix it up a lil.

[revf]

The main thing that we didn't do in the 2nd half was pick up the blitzes.

The MUTs blitzed a lot more in the 2nd half and most of the time we didn't pick it up.

A few times Higgins didn't even see it.

Stop with the "passing yards" stat for Higgins. 90% of those "yards" are yards after completion. Taylor and Henderson are great taking a 3-5 yard pass and making it 30 yards.

Higgins reminds me of Ross Jenkins in many ways. He's a decent game manager and can throw a good short pass most of the time.

[techman05]

How many 3 and outs did we have? It was the fact that we had 3 and outs necessarily or the # we had. They always seem to happen at the worst possible time. I think our defense is badly outmatched in most every contest we play. It is magnified when the offense can't possess the ball and burn clock and score 6. If we score 6 against the teams we have played thus far, instead of turning it over on downs or kicking FG's, I think we are 4-0.

[HogDawg]

HD, take a look at the Defense. There is a very good reason the old saying is "Offense Sells Tickets, Defense Wins Championships" in nearly every sport.

We can line up All-American QBs, RBs, etc but if SOMEBODY can't come up with a defensive INT or fumble recovery once in a while we're going to lose.

We all know that. I've been very critical of our defensive play. But this thread has a title about Skip's "play calling" against the MUTS. It's not about defense.

[HogDawg]

Higgins has the capability to run the ball into the endzone. I wish we'd do that play you mentioned more often.

Before our last 2 offensive plays, I told the guy standing next to me "I hope we roll Higgins out (maybe even a bootleg) and give him the option to run it in, or THROW it on a dart into the end zone if he has too." It would have worked. Higgins sees the filed better on rollouts. No way in hell would I have ever called a "fade" pattern. That's just dumb.

[HogDawg]

You did say he did enough to win. Obviously, that's not true.

These great stats our counteracted by THE great stat: 1-3

If you watch the games you'll see that our offense doesn't look nearly as efficient in real life as it does on paper.

The Professor also doesn't acknowledge that 3 (TX Tech, SC ST & MTSU) of the first 4 defenses we've faced so far have literally been some of the worst defenses in America. We SHOULD have big offensive stats at this point.

[HogDawg]

The main thing that we didn't do in the 2nd half was pick up the blitzes.

The MUTs blitzed a lot more in the 2nd half and most of the time we didn't pick it up.

A few times Higgins didn't even see it.

Stop with the "passing yards" stat for Higgins. 90% of those "yards" are yards after completion. Taylor and Henderson are great taking a 3-5 yard pass and making it 30 yards.

Higgins reminds me of Ross Jenkins in many ways. He's a decent game manager and can throw a good short pass most of the time.

Other than mine , that's the best post on this thread. I don't think Higgins threw a ball more than 10-12 yds down field all night. But we're not complaining about that. That's fine. But the Professor and DogsWin, et al, need to quit acting like Higgins is Carson Wentz. He's got a lot of flaws.