Texas Tech football: What Red Raiders must do to beat UCF

Texas Tech must make UCF sustain long drives

UCF is a team that wants to pick up yards in chunks.  In fact, they are tops in the conference in yards per play at 7.1.

Today, Tech needs to make UCF drive the ball to score.  Just like we saw last week against Kansas, that makes it more likely that a team will have a penalty, turnover, or negative play to derail a possession.

For instance, Kansas’ only TD last week against the Red Raiders was a 60-yard scoring run.  But when the Jahhawks had to drive 18 plays from their own seven to the Tech one, they eventually stalled out on 4th-and-goal getting no points in one of the pivotal moments of the game.

The Knights are only an average red-zone team.  Ranking 6th in the conference, they score on an average of 84.2% of their trips inside the 20.

They do have six instances of turning the ball over on downs inside the 20 and they have had to settle for nine field goals thus far.  That’s an area where the field shrinks and UCF’s speed is somewhat negated because the defense doesn’t have to worry about being beaten deep down the field.

Tech is doing a good job of forcing field goals from opponents in the red zone.  On 35 trips, opponents have had to kick 11 FGs.  That’s 31.4% of the opponent’s opportunities.

Tonight, the key may very well be the number of red zone possessions UCF has.  The higher the number, the less likely it is that the Knights will be scoring on big plays.

If UCF has to win this game three points at a time, they likely won’t be able to put enough on the board.  So what happens inside the 20 will be crucial, assuming that Tech can make UCF drive the football.