Texas Tech football: Oregon has tons of star power for Tech to contend with

Defensive lineman Brandon Dorlus will look to cause havoc for the Texas Tech O-line

Lanning is a defensive-minded head coach so it had to irk him that his side of the ball struggled in 2022 when facing good teams.  Giving up 49 points to Georgia, 30 points to UCLA, 37 points to Washington, and 38 to Oregon State, the Ducks were often exploited by high-powered offenses.

That’s why there was only one Duck on the preseason All-PAC-12 defensive team, defensive lineman Brandon Dorlus.

While much of the Oregon defense is built on the strength of transfers from the likes of Arizona State, Iowa, Alabama, South Carolina, Ole Miss, and Fresno State, Dorlus is a homegrown product.  In his four full years in Eugene, he’s amassed seven sacks and 20.0 tackles for loss.

At 6-foot-3, 285 pounds, he can play anywhere along the defensive line.  Expect him to spend plenty of time testing Tech’s offensive tackles though on Saturday.

Last year, the Ducks were just No. 70 in the nation in total defense.  Whether or not they are any better this year is still to be determined given that they played an FCS team in week one.

What’s more, the 2022 Ducks were 101st against the pass giving up 256.4 yards per game.  Now, some of that was because they often had big leads forcing their opponents to put the ball up quite a bit in order to try to keep pace.

Still, Tech should feel confident in its ability to score points this weekend.  Of course, that will require a better effort from the Red Raider offense than we saw against Wyoming.  If Tech can execute more efficiently on Saturday and run the offense like what we saw in the first quarter in Laramie, then this game could become an old-fashioned shootout.  That’s probably the Red Raiders’ best shot at winning this game.