Texas Tech football: Three areas where TCU could be problematic for Red Raiders

It feels strange to be a day away from this week’s Texas Tech football game on a Wednesday but that’s where we find ourselves.  Joey McGuire’s team will take on the Horned Frogs of TCU tomorrow in Lubbock looking to get to 4-5 on the season and score a win in a rivalry game for the second time this year after taking down Baylor a few weeks ago.

The good news is that the Red Raiders have won the last two games against TCU that were played on a Thursday night.  Both were during the Kingsbury era and both were low-scoring affairs.

In 2013, Kingsbury coached in his first Big 12 game in front of a passionate home crowd that saw Tech jump out to a 10-0 halftime lead at home.  However, TCU would tie the game early in the fourth quarter.

Then, Tech’s starting QB, Baker Mayfield, had to leave the game with an injury forcing fellow true freshman, Davis Webb, to take his first Big 12 snaps in a high-pressure situation.  He responded by tossing a 19-yard TD pass to Bradley Marquez and then leading Tech on a field goal drive to help secure the win.

That night, the Red Raiders forced three key turnovers to help win a game that saw them lose the total yardage battle.  It was one of the few times in the Kingsbury era in which the defense carried the team to a win.

Interestingly, another such instance came in 2018 when Kingsbury led his team into Fort Worth on a Thursday night.  With sophomore Jett Duffey making his first career start one week after freshman QB Alan Bowman was lost to injury, Tech somehow pulled out a 17-14 win.

The key play of the night was Duffey’s 38-yard TD run in the middle of the 4th quarter to provide the final margin.  On TCU’s final drive, Adrian Frye would wrap things up with a massive interception, one of three critical takeaways the Red Raiders would generate.

Tech is hoping that the Thursday night trend can continue tomorrow against TCU.  The Frogs come into the game having lost their last two road games by double-digits including a 41-3 thumping at the hands of Kansas State in their last game.

However, given the way Tech has played in its last two games, nothing is going to come easy.  And, in fact, TCU is still a dangerous team that has picked up a blowout win over the same BYU team that easily dispatched Tech two Saturdays ago.

So let’s look at where the Toads could present some problems this week.  And we will start with one of the few things that TCU does at an elite level.