Texas Tech football: Why K-State has owned the Red Raiders lately

Turnovers have killed Texas Tech against K-State

Over the course of this seven-game streak for K-State, Tech has given the football away 13 times while the Wildcats have done so only five times.  That’s a huge difference with Tech averaging 1.8 turnovers per game and KSU averaging 0.7.

Tech would lose the turnover battle in 2016, 2018, 2019, 2020, and 2022.  Meanwhile, KSU would lose it just once, in 2021.

2016 saw Mahomes throw a pick-six to gift KSU a 14-7 lead.  It was the only turnover in a game that saw Tech lose 44-38.

In 2017, KSU took a 24-21 lead in 3rd quarter thanks to a Nic Shimonek pick-six.  Tech would lose in OT so that play was pivotal, to say the least.

2018’s game included a Jett Duffey INT at the KSU 7 to take points off the board.  KSU scored a FG on the next drive meaning that sequence was possibly a 10-point swing.  Overall, Tech lost the TO battle 3-1 that day.

A year later, in 2019 Duffey was intercepted in the endzone in the 4th quarter as Tech was trailing 30-20.  Those missed points would be deadly in a 30-27 loss.

Henry Colomi was picked off in the endzone in the 4th quarter of the 2020 game when Tech was down only 24-21.  What’s more, Colombi picked off at KSU 35 in the 2021 game.  That mistake resulted in a first-half FG in a game that KSU would win by one point.

This year, KSU is second to last in the conference in turnover margin at -0.6 per game.  Tech sits at 9th with the same number of giveaways as takeaways.  Hopefully, that category falls the way of McGuire’s team this year because Tech really needs to find a way to end this awful losing streak to Kansas State.