Texas Tech football: Ground game will be key against Kansas

When the Texas Tech football team takes on Kansas Saturday in Lawrence, the Red Raiders need to take advantage of a vulnerable Jayhawk rush defense.

In the modern era of the program, we’ve grown accustomed to the passing game carrying the Texas Tech football team to more than a few victories. But this year, the Red Raiders rushing attack has been the more consistent aspect of their offense and Saturday against Kansas, Tech needs to continue to churn out yards on the ground against the worst rushing defense in the Big 12.

It’s not just that KU is the worst team in the conference against the run, it is that the Jayhawks are one of the weakest teams in the nation in that category. Allowing 223.4 yards per game, Les Miles’ team ranks 123rd out of 130 teams in the country when it comes to stopping the run.

That should have the Red Raiders and especially redshirt freshman SaRodorick Thompson excited for Saturday night. Though he started the season as one of three running backs that were expected to share the RB load in 2019, the Irving native is emerging as this team’s best all-around back.

In Big 12 play, he’s averaged 15.7 carries and 93.7 yards per game while reaching the endzone four times. That included a career-high 153 yards two games ago in Waco where he scored two touchdowns and averaged 5.5 yards per carry.

It is perhaps that stat that is most telling of how well Thompson has played in the last four weeks. Against the Sooners, Cowboys, Bears, and Cyclones, he’s averaged 6.1 yards per carry including an impressive 7.4 against OU on 13 carries. Sometimes it is common to see a player that only runs the ball a handful of times average such gaudy per-rush numbers but Thompson has had no fewer than the 10 carries he had last weekend as Tech was trying to play catch-up against Iowa State.

One must wonder if his numbers will only rise this weekend against a dreadful Jayhawk rushing defense. After all, KU is coming off a week in which it allowed Texas to run for 239 yards and average 6.0 yards per rush.

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UT running back Keaontay Ingram had 101 yards and a TD on just 14 carries and was just the latest RB to gash the KU defense. Three games ago, TCU’s Darius Anderson went for 115 yards and a TD on 18 carries while the next week, OU’s Rhamondre Stevenson put up 109 yards and a score on just five rushes against to porous KU defense.

Now, Tech will likely try to follow the lead of other Big 12 teams and pound Kansas with the run. And after having surprising success on the ground against the conference’s best rush defense, Iowa State, there should be plenty of confidence in the Red Raider ground game.

The Cyclones are allowing only 2.9 yards per carry entering last week’s game at Jones Stadium. But the Red Raiders managed to average 4.9 yards per carry on 34 rushes. What’s more, all three of Tech’s running backs, Thompson, Armand Shyne, and Ta’Zhawn Henry averaged at least 4.6 yards every time they carried the rock.

That’s quite the performance from an offensive line that is playing without All-Big 12 right guard Jack Anderson who is out for the year with an upper-body injury. But since Anderson has been out, (his last game of the year was the conference opener against OU), the line is paving the way for 159.3 yards per game on the ground despite playing two of the top four rushing defenses in the conference, Baylor and Iowa State.

It is encouraging to see that aspect of the offense perform better this year in the absence of Alan Bowman than it did last year when the Red Raiders’ starting QB was lost for the season with his second collapsed lung of the year. Tech averaged just 105.7 yards per game on the ground in the four full games Bowman missed a year ago. That was down from the 146 yards the team averaged in the other eight games, which included two 200-yard rushing days.

What’s more surprising is that the ground game hasn’t had to rely on backup QB Jett Duffey for the bulk of its rushing yards as was the case last year when he led the team on the ground 369 yards. This year, he’s been much less inclined to run, being as he is the only healthy scholarship QB on the roster, racking up just 53 total yards on the season and not surpassing 24 yards in any game.

After the ISU game, Tech fans were unhappy with the Red Raider passing attack, which threw 17 wide receiver screens. But if one reframes those plays and puts them in the rushing category (which is not what the stats will show but is how the coaching staff views that aspect of their scheme), we will quickly view the average of 5.1 yards per play on those screens as a success that is in line with what the rest of the ground attack has been able to accomplish.

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This weekend, Tech will face one of the best running backs in the nation, Pooka Williams, who will give the Red Raider defense a tremendous challenge on the ground. However, it may be the Texas Tech ground game that proves to be the more lethal attack this week, especially against a defense that is giving up over 28 yards per game more by land than any other Big 12 team.

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