Texas Tech football: RBs, O-line deserve game balls for victory over Cougars

The Texas Tech Offensive line had it’s best day yet

Whenever a team runs the ball as well as Tech did against the Cougars, the offensive line deserves some love.  McGuire gave them plenty in his post-game remarks.

"“Probably one of the better games we’ve played,” he said.  “…I thought we did a really good job of protecting Behren when we needed to protect.  I thought Tahj did a great job, he had some really great chip blocks, you know, to knock those guys off.  I think he put a couple of guys…on their back on the chip blocks. One of their better games against a good front, that we’ve played in the last two years.”"

While there has been no question that the Red Raider line has struggled in pass protection this year, it has been pretty solid in the run game.  With Brooks averaging 6.2 yards per carry this year and Valdez now averaging 11.4, there have to be some holes to run through and that’s where the linemen have been the unsung heroes this season.

On Saturday, though, the pass protection was improved as well.  Houston has a strong pass rush but was only able to get to Morton once on the afternoon.

Granted, the plan by Texas Teh was to get the ball out of Morton’s hands in a hurry using screens and quick passes.  What’s more, Morton was only asked to throw the ball 22 times.

Though Morton’s attempts were low, he was rarely harassed when he did look to pass.  That’s a testament to the work of the big guys in front of him.

Also, the line was not penalized in this game.  That’s also been a problem this year, especially at the tackle positions.

If there was one valid complaint about the play of the line in this game, it would have to be the handful of low snaps from center Rusty Staats.  That has been a consistent issue for him all season and it’s something he has to remedy moving forward because rolling the ball back to the QB is a sure-fire recipe for disaster.

There is no question that this line is not as improved as we hoped it would be this year.  Much of the offseason hype about that unit was likely a result of getting to go against the anemic Tech pass rush in practice and scrimmages.

However, that position group does seem to thrive when running the ball and that is something to build on.  Hopefully what we saw against the Cougs is a building block for the Red Raider offensive linemen.