Texas Tech football: Why the Red Raiders lost to TCU

Saturday’s loss to TCU was another frustrating game from the Texas Tech football team so let’s go inside the box score to see why the Red Raiders fell short.

On Saturday, a home team finally won a game in the Texas Tech/TCU series ending a five-year run of success for the visiting squads.  But that wasn’t good news for Matt Wells’ and his team as they fell to 2-5 with a 34-18 loss in Fort Worth.

The defining moment of the game will forever be Wells’ inexplicable decision to kick a 37-yard field goal on 2nd-and-4 with his team trailing 27-18 with 2:44 to play in the game.  Of course, it sailed wide left essentially ending any hope of a Red Raider comeback while also adding another negative mark to Wells’ ledger as head coach.

But even if you take that boneheaded moment out of the equation, this was still a strange game.  In fact, when you take a look at the TCU box score, it reads as if the Frogs lost.

For starters, QB Max Duggan was abysmal as a passer.  He completed just 11 of 23 passes for a mere 73 yards and an interception.  He was also picked off once and had no passing TDs.

To put that game in perspective, consider that in his horrendous showing against Iowa State this season, Tech’s Alan Bowman was 13 of 22 passing for 97 yards and no picks.  That performance was bad enough to get Bowman benched but Duggan’s was good enough to win Saturday’s game.

Life in the Big 12 almost always requires a team to be able to throw the ball in order to win. But that’s usually because the opposing offense is capable of putting up points at a rapid rate.

Unfortunately, that’s not the case for this year’s Red Raiders.  Tech is now averaging just 29.6 points per game and has not put up more than 28 offensive points in its last five games.

Much of that is because of the mediocre play Tech has received at QB.  Once the position that Red Raider football was known for, that spot on the field has become a huge problem.

After Henry Colombi threw for just 234 yards against TCU, Tech has not had a 300-yard passer since Bowman passed for 331 yards against Texas.  Since then, Tech has averaged just 221.8 yards per game through the air.

But while Colombi wasn’t good enough against TCU, he wasn’t the main reason the Red Raiders lost to the Horned Frogs.  So let’s take a look inside the box score to see why Tech lost yet again on Saturday.