Texas Tech football: Matt Wells’ best games as Utah State head coach

No. 3: Blowing out Boise St. in 2015

In 2018, Texas Tech put an end to one of the longest losing streaks in program history by beating Oklahoma State for the first time since 2008.  In 2015, Wells’ team ended an even longer losing streak when the Aggies took down Boise State for the first time in twelve games.

USU did not simply win the game, they humiliated the No. 21 Broncos 52-26 by forcing eight turnovers.  Seven of those takeaways came in the first half, including a 90-yard touchdown return on the half’s last play.  It was the Aggies’ third touchdown in the final two minutes of the quarter.

Despite the fact that the teams were virtually even on the stat sheet (USU outgained Boise 334 yards to 333), the Aggies cruised to the win thanks to their ability to take the ball away fand give their offense extra possessions.

That is a formula Wells believes will help the Red Raider defense in 2019.  However, we learned during David Gibbs’ tenure as defensive coordinator that forcing turnovers is somewhat random and often a result of luck as much as anything else.

Certainly, teams can make takeaways a priority and practice techniques aimed at getting the ball back, but often turnovers are a result of mistakes by the other team.  That explains how Tech’s finish of No. 6 in the nation in takeaways gained in 2017 was sandwiched in between 2016’s No. 112 finish and last years No. 78 finish.

But the bigger takeaway from this game should be the fact that Wells was able to take down the Mountain West Conference’s dominant program.  Boise is the predominant Group of 5 conference program in the nation and is considered by most to be as good as many Power 5 programs.

If Tech is going to take the next step as a program, Wells is going to have to figure out how to take down the Big 12’s version of Goliath, Oklahoma.  Tech has not beaten the Sooners since 2011 but came close last year in a 51-46 loss in Lubbock.

Wells only beat Boise once but that’s more than Kingsbury was able to beat his conference’s dominant team.  Of course, Tech fans want him to beat OU more than once every six years but even the occasional win over the best program in the league would be a step in the right direction.