Texas Tech football: 2020 Red Raiders have somehow become worse in these areas

Red zone offense

The greatest deficiency in the 2019 offensive attack was the Red Raiders’ inability to convert in the red zone.  But this year, the offense has taken a further step back when trying to score inside the opponent’s 20.

So far, the Red Raiders are just 13-18 in the red zone.  That’s just 72.2%, which is 9th in the Big 12 and 65th out of 76 teams that have played a game thus far.   A season ago, Tech was at 88.2%, which was tied for second-worst in the conference.

The problem has been two-fold.  First and foremost have been the struggles of kicker Trey Wolff.  All three of his misses have come on drives that were at one point saw Tech in the opponent red zone.  If he were to have made those three attempts, the Red Raiders would be at 88.8%, which would be slightly better than last year’s rate.

Meanwhile, the Red Raiders have had a pair of red-zone turnovers as well.  In the opener, Tech turned the ball over on downs when a 4th-and-1 QB sneak was stuffed by Houston Baptist inside the 5-yard line.  And against the Longhorns, Alan Bowman threw a pick one play after his team took over possession at the UT 17 following a blocked punt.

If there is good news about Tech’s red zone work this year, it would be that the touchdown percentage has increased to 72.2%.  Last year, the Red Raiders found the endzone on only 54.9% of their forays inside the 20.

However, this offense has to be more effective inside the 20.  For a team that has almost no margin for error due to its charitable defense, the offense has to take advantage of every red-zone opportunity but that hasn’t been the case so far in 2020.