Texas Tech football: Turning points in Red Raiders win over West Virginia

Riko Jeffers’ first-quarter strip-sack

Up 21-3 near the end of the first quarter, Texas Tech allowed West Virginia another deep drive into scoring range. On 4th-and-11 from the Red Raider 31, West Virginia rolled the dice and looked to keep the drive going knowing that the game was quickly getting away from them.

When Austin Kendal dropped back to pass, junior LB Riko Jeffers blitzed off the edge and got to QB Austin Kendall forcing what looked like an incomplete sack but what was eventually ruled a fumble, recovered in the secondary by Eli Howard.

It was only the third sack of Jeffer’s career and his first of the season.  It was also a look at how Keith Patterson’s defense is supposed to look.

On critical passing downs, we can almost guarantee that Patterson is going to dial up a blitz despite the fact that his only accomplished pass-rushing LB is Jordyn Brooks.  Far too often this year, the rush has not gotten home and the secondary that is in man coverage has been sitting ducks for QBs to target.

But Jeffers got home on this massive play and squashed yet another West Virginia scoring threat.  Had the mountaineers found the endzone on this drive, the game could have been much more competitive than it turned out to be.

WVU would have been down only 11 points and knowing how prone to giving up big plays Tech’s defense is, there would have been plenty of optimism on the Mountaineer sideline.  But thankfully, Jeffers kept his unit from giving up another 3rd-and-long conversion.

All season, Patterson’s squad has been inexplicably atrocious on 3rd-and-long passing situations so Tech fans were not crazy to assume that this play was going to go WVU’s way.  Though I still hate Patterson’s scheme, on this play, he dialed up the right play and was rewarded by a strip-sack that prevented the home team from taking back some of the momentum.