Texas Tech football: Questionable coaching decisions costly in loss to Bears

In Saturday’s 33-30 double-OT loss to Baylor, the Texas Tech football team was hurt by a number of questionable decisions from the coaching staff.

Before all the social media defenders of the Texas Tech football coaching staff come riding to the rescue of Matt Wells and Co. by pointing out that I have never coached a single college football game, I will readily admit that the Red Raider coaches have more knowledge of the game in their left pinky toenail than I have in my entire brain.

Now that we have that out of the way, let’s look at some truly puzzling and questionable coaching decisions that proved impactful in Saturday’s 33-30 come from ahead loss to Baylor.   Though we all feel that it is our birthright to be armchair play-callers, we do not usually understand the context of each call because we are not in the team meetings during the week nor are we listening to the conversations between the coaches during the games.

Still, sometimes decisions stick out and grab our attention like the house off of Indiana Avenue that was painted with purple with black and yellow polka dots about 15 years ago used to as we drove towards campus.

Of course, we now have the benefit of hindsight to help us analyze these calls whereas that is not a luxury afforded to coaches during the heat of battle.   But at the moment these choices were made, Red Raider fans were left scratching their heads before the outcome of the game was known.

Interestingly, we aren’t going to look at any of offensive coordinator David Yost’s play calls.  After every game, the offensive coordinator for any team is the most scrutinized member of any coaching staff because years of playing high school football and Madden video games have turned every American male into the next Lincoln Riley.

Overall, I had no problem with the game Yost called.  Sure, there were a few times when I wasn’t pleased with specific plays but that is the case every week.  Still, his offense put up 30 points (20 in regulation) and 510 yards.

For perspective, consider that the sneaky good Baylor defense had given up just 15.4 points per game prior to Saturday.  Also, though he played well for the second-straight week, we must not forget that Jett Duffey is essentially this team’s third-string QB so the job that Yost did in putting his QB and the offense in position to succeed was commendable.

What’s more, the offense could have had tons more points after putting up just 13 on six drives that reached the Baylor 21.  Yost didn’t tell SaRodorick Thompson to fumble at the Baylor 18 in the first half or Jett Duffey to throw a red-zone INT in the 4th quarter.

If you want to go back to the reverse to Dalton Rigdon that got blown up or a random swing pass or running play that caused you to soil your loins in anger during the game, fair enough.  But the reason Tech lost was not because of any egregious calls by Yost.

Instead, it was critical miscalculations by Wells and his other coordinator, Keith Patterson, that will haunt us all week.  Let’s take a look at three times when coaching decisions did not work out and led to a disappointing loss.