Texas Tech football: Hidden moments in the loss to Kansas State
There were opportunities for the Texas Tech football team to secure a win over Kansas State but these hidden moments turned the game against the Red Raiders.
Close games have become the norm for the Texas Tech football program during the Matt Wells era. Unfortunately, none have gone into the win column outside of the embarrassing 35-33 “victory” over Houston Baptist. In fact, the Red Raiders are now 0-5 against Big 12 teams in once score games under Wells.
Though Saturday’s 31-21 loss to Kansas State ended up being more than a one-score game, Tech was down just three points in the final minutes before a late Wildcat TD secured the win. And as in every nip-and-tuck contest, there were hidden moments that proved to have a huge impact on the game despite us not recognizing it at the time. So let’s look back at some key plays that might have seemed innocuous at the time that they happened but which proved to be rather significant.
Koontz and Bowman can’t connect early
Our first hidden moment came on the Red Raiders’ first drive of the game. After picking up a first down on the first play of the possession, Tech would then face a 2nd-and-10 at their own 35.
On that play, tight end Travis Koontz would run a simple curl route in the right slot. But Alan Bowman’s pass to him was thrown high and with far too much velocity given that it was just a simple 5-yard route.
As you can imagine, the laser beam of a pass went through Koontz’s hands forcing Tech into a 3rd-and-10 situation. On third down, the Bowman would simply throw a swing pass to RB SaRodorick Thompson, who was stopped for a minimal gain.
So why is this 2nd-down incompletion significant? Because it came two snaps before Kansas State would block Austin McNamara’s first punt of the afternoon.
Think about how this drive unraveled on that 2nd-down snap. Instead of picking up at least five yards to make 3rd down much more manageable, the Red Raiders couldn’t execute a simple pitch and catch and it forced them into an unpleasant early 3rd down.
Remember that Tech’s two tackles, Josh Burger and Ethan Carde, have struggled at times this year. What’s more, KSU has a defensive line that Matt Wells had praised profusely leading up to the game. Thus, we might be safe in assuming that Wells and OC David Yost were not willing to expose their tackles on their team’s first 3rd down attempt by asking them to block long enough for Bowman to find a receiver downfield.
In fact, on the 3rd down snap, Tech would send only one receiver past the sticks as the rest ran shallow routes that would have required them to catch the ball and make a defender miss in order to get the 10 yards needed to keep the drive alive.
The old saying in football is that “you can’t go broke taking a profit”. In other words, if you take the yards that are there, you will usually come out ahead. But that’s what Bowman and Koontz failed to do on second down and it essentially killed this first drive of the game and led to the Wildcat punt block. But in our second hidden moment, we’ll look at a critical mistake that allowed KSU to score the TD after their big special teams play.