Texas Tech football: How Red Raiders can survive until Alan Bowman returns

Win the turnover battle

One encouraging development in Saturday’s game was the fact that Tech finally came up with some takeaways.  With two Douglas Coleman interceptions and a Jordyn Brooks fumble recovery, Tech actually won the turnover battle against the Wildcats by one.

That did not lead to a win, however, in part because only one of those three gifts from the home team led to points.  After Tech’s first pick, Alan Bowman threw an interception of his own in the end zone on the ensuing drive.  And after Coleman’s second pick, Tech did not have enough time remaining in the half to get into field goal range.

Still, when teams win the turnover battle, they usually win the game (though that has not proven to be true in any of Tech’s three games thus far).  And to survive without Bowman, the turnovers have to go Tech’s way more often than not.

If we are correct in assuming that the offense will be even more limited moving forward than we saw last week, then the more drives the defense can give the offense, the better chance Tech will have of putting points on the board.  Of course, if the Red Raider defense wanted to score on some of those takeaways, that would help tremendously as well.

Tech almost had a defensive score against UTEP when Zech McPhearson intercepted a pass and took it to the house.  However, an offsides call against Dadrion Taylor negated the play, which would have been McPhearson’s first career pick.

Often, turnovers are the great equalizer in a college football game.  They can help a team pull off an upset or cause a team to be the victim of one.

Last year, Tech lost the turnover battle in its seven losses by a 2-1 margin (14-7 overall).  That is an area where this year’s team has to be better, especially without Bowman to help the offense put up the type of points that can sometimes overcome a deficit in the turnover department.