One of the biggest accomplishments that Joey McGuire and the Texas Tech Red Raiders have achieved so far this season is the way that they handled the BYU Cougars the first time the two teams met up in Lubbock about a month ago.
The Red Raiders really didn’t have any sort of major issue taking care of business against BYU back in November and Texas Tech very gradually smothered the life out of the Cougars in the process. BYU was locked down on offense and ultimately held to just 255 total yards of offense.
Despite the fact that the Cougars possessed the ball for a little over 30 minutes, BYU wasn’t able to get anything more than just seven points on the scoreboard in the 29-7 loss that they suffered against the Red Raiders.
Which is great for Texas Tech!
And now the Red Raiders have to figure out how to do that again (or at least something remotely like that again), which will likely be easier said than done, to be completely honest. And if you ask the head coach of the Red Raiders, it sounds like he’d agree with that notion.
Texas Tech head coach Joey McGuire notes how challenging beating BYU again could be for the Red Raiders
“It’s hard to beat somebody twice," McGuire stated in a press conference earlier in the week.
McGuire continued to note that the motivation that his team carries into this game could potentially impact the outcome a bit.
“One thing that I think is really important, your team’s ‘why’ is very important on beating somebody twice,” McGuire continued.
As for how the Red Raiders are going to prepare for this matchup and get set to take on the challenge of trying to beat the Cougars for a second time this season?
“I asked the coaches in our staff meeting to really dig into the first game of where we missed the mark on some stuff where they could take advantage of us, where we could take advantage of them,” McGuire said about BYU. “And then watching their last three games that they’ve placed with TCU, Cincinnati, and UCF.”
It truly seems unlikely that this game will be an easy win for the Red Raiders and it’s encouraging to see that Texas Tech’s head coach is taking this one seriously.