Texas Tech football: How the Red Raiders were able to beat WVU

The Red Raiders were the better team on 3rd down

When it came to the game’s most important down, Tech was by far the better team.  That too was not what most expected to transpire.

For the game, the Red Raiders were 8-16 on 3rd down.  By picking up 50% of their opportunities to keep drives alive on 3rd down, Tech outpaced what the previous four WVU opponents had done by 24.9%.

That was important given how the Red Raiders struggled in that department in Ames where they went 0-10 on 3rd down.  What’s more, going back to the end of the K-State loss, Tech entered Saturday with a string of 13-straight unsuccessful conversation attempts.

On three of Tech’s four offensive scoring drives, at least on 3rd down conversion was necessary.  What’s more, on the drive that ended with Trey Cleveland’s TD catch to put the Red Raiders up 20-10, the offense picked up three third-down conversions (and one fourth-down conversion as well).

Meanwhile, West Virginia was just 4-16 on 3rd down.  That had to be disappointing to the Mountaineers given that they entered the game at 39.6% for the season.

Holding WVU to just 25% on third down, the Red Raiders had their best 3rd-down defensive success of the year.  Previously, the best they had done was holding Texas at 31.2% in the season’s second game.

Hopefully, that’s something the defense can build on and it will carry on through the second half of the season.  Because, as we saw on Saturday evening, coming up big on 3rd down makes a huge difference for a defense.