Texas Tech football: Donovan Smith highlights players to watch vs. Houston

Is Adrian Frye healthy and ready to play better?

Last week, super-senior corner Adrian Frye suffered insult and injury.  On a 50-plus yard TD reception by Murray State, Frye was beaten in a one-on-one situation and at the end of the play, he came up lame with what would later be revealed to be a thigh contusion, an injury that would end his evening.

McGuire has said that he expects Frye to play this weekend.  Still, it is fair to wonder if he will be fully healthy and it is also fair to wonder if he will be more effective this time around.

Tech will likely give extra safety help to whichever slot corner is covering Houston’s best weapon, inside receiver Tank Dell.  Thus, the outside corners might find themselves in man coverage quite a bit, especially if they are on the same side of the formation as Dell.

Also, Dana Holgorsen and his coaching staff certainly will want to test Frye and the rest of the Red Raider secondary vertically given how the Red Raiders struggled with the deep ball against Murray State.

The good news is that the Houston outside receivers are far from proven commodities.  In fact, both are young and relatively green, just like Tech’s two outside receivers.

However, neither Joseph Manjack IV nor Matthew Golden is the caliber of athlete that Bradley and Fouonji are.  Thus, Frye and Rayshad Williams or Malik Dunlap should be able to physically match up on the outside.  Still, they must all play the ball better than they did in week one because Houston will test them deep.