While ESPN’s Mark Schlabach doesn’t have Joey McGuire and the Texas Tech football team heading to the College Football Playoff in his latest projections, it looks like one of Schlabach’s colleagues does indeed believe the Red Raiders can make it into the CFP this season.
Kyle Bonagura still seemingly believes in what the Red Raiders are capable of accomplishing this season as the ESPN college football analyst has McGuire and Texas Tech taking on a blue blood from the Southeastern Conference in a first round matchup in his College Football Playoff projections.
Of course, Bonagura only has the Red Raiders making it into the first round. He doesn’t seem to think that Texas Tech can beat their hypothetical foe of Kirby Smart and the Georgia Bulldogs. And I don’t totally blame him on that one.
ESPN college football analyst Kyle Bonagura puts Texas Tech in College Football Playoff matchup with Georgia Bulldogs
Drawing the Georgia Bulldogs isn’t exactly going to be an easy sort of matchup and I, for one, don’t love that sort of hypothetical situation for the Red Raiders. I think Texas Tech has been really impressive all season long. The Red Raiders have secured all seven of their wins by at least 24 points up to this point in the season.
And the more the Houston Cougars and Utah Utes win, the more impressive those lopsided road wins for Texas Tech happen to look.
One thing about this sort of potential matchup with Georgia that does make me feel decent about it if it were to happen is the way the Bulldogs have been gashed for explosive plays by similar offensive systems to what Texas Tech is running.
Both the Tennessee Volunteers and the Ole Miss Rebels have offenses that are either heavily influenced by the veer-and-shoot or are just straight up a slightly different iteration of the offense that Mack Leftwich has brought to Lubbock. And Tennessee managed to put up 41 points in an overtime loss while Ole Miss put up 35 points in a road loss.
If this matchup were to actually take place, I like the fact that this sort of offense has found success against Georgia. That is a little comforting.