Texas Tech football: Where Red Raiders have surprised as a team thus far

The Red Raiders have cut down on their penalties

It feels odd to say that penalties have been a pleasant surprise given that Friday, we took a blunt look at how that area of the game cost Tech dearly in Tucson.  But when backing up to look at the first three weeks as a whole, there’s no doubt that the team has been refreshingly improved in its discipline.

Tech was flagged four times in each of the first two games of the season but last week, that number rose to seven.  Overall, Wells’ team ranks tied for 24th nationally with five infractions per game while sitting in at No. 37 in penalty yards per game at 46.3.

That’s a marked improvement from 2018.  Continuing the program’s frustrating tradition of being one of the most penalized programs in the game, Kliff Kingsbury’s final team at Tech finished the year at No. 120 overall in penalties per game (8) and No. 124 in penalty yards (74.1).

When a new coaching staff takes over, there are sometimes changes in the way players are taught techniques like hand placement or footwork that can lead to an increase in flags.  Additionally, Tech is playing vastly different schemes on each side of the ball which could also bring about more penalties.

But this year, Wells’ team has been better in that area.  And he’s focused on pre-snap and post-snap penalties as the area where his team needs to be better.

In week one, Tech had three penalties that came before or after the play.  But that number was cut to just one against UTEP.  However, against Arizona, Tech had five penalties that did not occur during the course of play including having 12 men on the field, being called for defensive delay of game for imitating the snap count, and taunting.

Time will only tell if what we saw in the first two games of the year, both of which were both stress-free home games, is what we can expect moving forward or whether the flags will continue to rise as the competition gets tougher.

However, we have seen plenty of times in the past where it did not matter if Tech was playing OU, an FCS team, or the Cavazos Jr. High developmental team; flags were going to litter the field.  So far, that appears to be improving under this new coaching staff and that’s been something worth appreciating.