Texas Tech football: Handing out game balls for UT game

The Texas Tech football team received some excellent individual performances in game No. 2 so let’s had out some imaginary game balls.

Texas Tech continues to defy the odds in the worst of ways.  That’s because the Red Raiders are coming off of yet another game in which reaching the 50-point mark simply wasn’t enough to secure a victory.

There was a time in the history of the program that the thought of putting up 50 points was hard to fathom.  But of course, in the modern age of the sport, that number has become rather attainable for virtually any program.

However, what hasn’t changed is the expectation that 50 points should be enough to win a game.  But one place where that expectation might be changing is Lubbock, Texas.

After all, Saturday’s 63-56 the fifth time that Tech has lost a game in the last ten years despite putting 50 points on the board.

We all remember the 55-52 loss to TCU in 2015.  That was the game when the Frogs scored a last-second TD off of a deflected pass.  But that game could have gone Tech’s way had the Red Raiders run more time off the clock on the drive prior to TCU’s game-winning possession than the 1:42 they managed to drain.

But do you remember that year’s loss to Oklahoma State?  That was the one in which the Red Raiders scored 53 points but surrendered 70 to the No. 12 Cowboys.  In that game, OSU receiver James Washington had 200 yards receiving and a pair of TDs on just four receptions.

Of course, who could forget that the second game of the 2016 season took Tech to Tempe, Arizona where 55 points were not enough for a win.  Thanks to eight total TDs (seven on the ground) from Arizona State running back Kalen Ballage, the Sun Devils were able to hang 68 points on the Red Raiders.  It’s hard to fathom that a team that scored 55 points would lose a game by double-digits but that’s exactly what Tech did that night in the desert.

Of course, five games later came the famous 66-59 loss to OU when Pat Mahomes and Baker Mayfield had an old-west style shootout.  That night, the Red Raider defense was so inept that it allowed the Sooners to score TDs on their final six drives of the game before they decided to kneel out the clock on the game’s final possession.

On top of all of those aggravating losses, Tech has also dropped six games since 2010 in which the offense has managed to put up at least 40 points.  Thus, it is easy to understand why Red Raider fans have become so jaded and cynical and why there was an impending sense of doom the moment Texas began its comeback on Saturday afternoon.

But even though the most recent loss to the Longhorns may be the most frustrating of them all, there were some excellent individual performances from some Red Raiders.  So here’s a look at the players that were deserving of game balls after this weekend’s rollercoaster ride of a football game.