Texas Tech football: What we can learn from previous upsets of Longhorns
Timely stops can be enough
As we said earlier, Tech isn’t going to shut down the UT offense unless something unimaginable happens. But what the four upsets of the “Air Raid” era have taught us is that timely stops can be good enough.
In fact, in three of the four wins, the defense has managed to come up with critical plays to help stem the UT offensive tide.
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We’ve already talked about the Aycock interception with just over five minutes to play in 2002. That was the turning point in Tech’s win as it gave the Red Raiders an opportunity to run out the clock and seal the victory.
In 2008, Tech actually got two defensive scores that proved to be huge. There was the Colby Whitlock safety on the UT’s first play from scrimmage and then there was the Charbonnet pick-six in the third quarter that we discussed a moment ago. Those nine points proved to be huge in what turned out to be a six-point win.
One of the pivotal moments of the 2015 game in Austin proved to be a 4th-down stop in the 4th quarter by the Tech defense. Forcing an incompletion from QB Tyrone Swoopes on 4th-and-2, Tech put an end to a string of four-straight UT touchdown drives. On the ensuing drive, Tech would score to take the lead for good.
The 2017 game was a bit of a departure from that pattern though. In the second half, the Red Raiders allowed UT to score only three points. Included in that performance was a string of four-straight stops to end the game, two of which were critical interceptions.
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Unfortunately, we will have to prepare ourselves for plenty of UT scoring drives on Saturday. But if the Red Raiders can stay in the game due to the offense and make a few timely stops, perhaps we could find ourselves celebrating an upset of Texas again this year.