Texas Tech football: Red Raiders that must step up vs. Cyclones

SaRodorick Thompson

Is SaRodorick Thomspon still this team’s workhorse running back?  It’s a fair question to ask after he got just 12 carries last week against K-State in a game in which Tech lost its starting QB.

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Once Bowman went down, it was assumed that Thomspon would carry the offense but as the game wore on, Tech turned to Xavier White more than Thompson and White delivered 113 yards and a TD.

That was likely a case of the Red Raiders riding the hot hand.  After all, Thompson had been rather ineffective prior to White’s emergence and he finished the game with just 46 yards.

Today, the Red Raiders will need both to be impact players given the importance of being able to run the ball against Iowa State.  That means Thompson will have to help carry the load all day.

What’s concerning is that Thomspon hasn’t been all that consistently dominant this year.  If you take away the one 75-yard TD run he had against Texas, he’s averaged just 2.7 yards per rush in his last two games.

But he could be a huge factor against ISU.  He’s better at making defenders miss in the hole than White is and his ability to break tackles might be a huge ingredient for Tech this afternoon.

Last year, Thompson averaged 5.7 yards per carry on 10 rushes against Iowa State.  What’s more, he scored twice on the ground.  That’s the type of productivity (especially in terms of yards per attempt) that we need to see from him today.