Texas Tech football: Surprises from the Red Raiders’ week one loss

The Texas Tech outside receivers didn’t dominate

One area where it was expected that Tech would be able to exploit the Wyoming defense was on the outside where the massive Red Raider outside receivers were thought to be physical mismatches.  That didn’t materialize.

Sure, Jerand Bradley caught eight passes for 88 yards and a TD.  However, one could hardly characterize his performance as dominating.  In fact, it could be argued that he had a quiet night outside of the TD pass he caught on his team’s second OT drive.

Meanwhile, Loic Fojoni might as well have stayed in Lubbock.  With only one catch for 20 yards, he was a complete non-factor on the evening.  That was truly a surprise.

His backup, Jordan Brown, made a potentially game-changing play late in the 4th quarter as the Red Raiders were driving the ball while trailing 20-17.  His acrobatic 27-yard reception along the sideline set his team up at the Wyoming 14 and put Tech in field goal range to eventually tie the game.

Outside of that, though, he had only one other reception.  After all the talk of how he dominated the offseason and fall camp, more was expected of him as well.

Now, was the quiet night from these receivers solely their fault?  Of course not.  Shough’s poor performance and Kittley’s game plan also played a role in this disappointment.

Still, Tech looked to have a huge advantage in the matchup between its outside receivers and the Wyoming secondary, at least on paper.  So the fact that Tech couldn’t exploit that perceived edge was a big surprise.