If the 2020 season is going to be a step forward, the Texas Tech football team had better figure out how to step up in the fourth quarter of close games.
In football, the fourth quarter is where most games are decided. Unfortunatley, that was a time when the 2019 Texas Tech football team struggled more than at any other point in the game. That’s one huge reason that Tech was so terrible in games that were decided in the last fifteen minutes of play.
Overall, the Red Raiders were 0-5 in games in which the margin was seven points or less when the final period of play began. Meanwhile, in all four of Tech’s victories, the Red Raiders held at least a 13-point edge at that juncture of the game.
There are a number of reasons that Tech struggled late in games last year. First of all, the team lacked sufficient depth, especially along the defensive line. As games wore on, the Red Raider pass rush wore down as players like Broderick Washington and Eli Howard lost much of their effectiveness after playing upwards of 50 snaps per game.
One also has to wonder if the lack of experience in the systems of new coordinators David Yost and Keith Patterson was a contributing factor. When close games are on the line, playing with confidence and relying on instinct is critical for players and teams in the first year of a new coaching regime often struggle to execute in the most important moments because they may still be thinking about what they are supposed to do.
It will be imperative that this trend of coming up short in close games begins to reverse course in 2020. That’s because this program can ill-afford another season of gut-wrenching close losses as it continues to fight for relevance in the Big 12 and for the long-lost adoration of a fan base that has given its emotions over to Chris Beard’s basketball program and Tim Tadlock’s baseball program.
We can be certain that close games are going to be commonplace in 2020 as the Red Raiders seem to lack the type of talent that will simply bury opponents early in games. That’s been the case for quite some time as 16 games over the last three seasons have been decided by ten points or fewer. That’s an average of 5.3 games per year. And when you consider that none of those games came against non-Power 5 teams (which comprise two of each season’s 12 games) you can see that over half of the games against Big 12 or Power 5 teams are considered close affairs.
So let’s go inside the numbers to see just what Tech has struggled in the 4th quarter. As we do, we will get an idea as to where the improvements need to come from this fall.