Texas Tech football 2023 rewatch: Red Raiders blow great opportunity vs. Oregon

Today, as we count off another Saturday until the Texas Tech football season begins, we continue our rewatch of the 2023 season. Unfortunately, that means we have to revisit a blown opportunity by the Red Raiders.

Coming off of a disappointing double-overtime loss to Wyoming in week one, the Red Raiders returned home to take on the No. 13 Oregon Ducks needing a win to get the season back on track. However, another winnable game got away from the Red Raiders.

In the 38-30 Oregon win, Tech blew a 27-18 third-quarter lead. What's more, the Red Raiders had a chance to win the game with under a minute to play possessing the ball and trailing by only one point. However, a sack led to a pick-six for the Ducks to seal the win.

So let's go inside this game and see just how the Red Raiders lost a golden opportunity to make waves by taking down a top-15 team on national television. And we'll begin by looking at the biggest reason that Tech came up short.

Turnovers killed the Red Raiders

For the game, the Red Raiders lost the turnover battle 4-0. That's a sure-fire way to drop a game to a team as good as Oregon.

That was a problem for the Red Raiders all season. Tech struggled to both protect the football and generate takeaways.

In fact, Tech was 110th nationally and 13th overall in the Big 12 in turnover margin. Averaging a -.46 turnovers gained per game, the Red Raiders were woeful all season in the most important statistical category in the sport.

That proved to be a fatal flaw against Oregon. Three of those turnovers came when Tech was inside the Oregon 40 and the other was the game-sealing pick-six that happened when the Red Raiders had moved the ball to their own 47 looking to take the lead. That's not how you win big games.

Tyler Shough was outplayed by Bo Nix

One huge factor in this game was the quarterback play between the two teams. Though he was motivated to take down his former school, Tech's QB Tyler Shough was nowhere near good enough. Meanwhile, Oregon's Bo Nix played a mistake-free game.

While he ran for 101 yards and a TD, Shough was only 24-38 for 282 yards passing. What's more, he was picked off three times and he lost a fumble to offset his three TD passes.

On the game's defining play, the 4th-quarter pick six that saw Shough get drilled and lose the ball into the arms of an Oregon defender, Shough failed to see a wide-open Myles Price who was crossing right in front of Shough's face and who could have run for 20 yards or more had Shough only seen him and delivered the ball on time.

Meanwhile, Nix was 32-44 for 359 yards and two TDs with no turnovers. He also ran for 46 yards on nine carries including picking up a critical fourth-quarter first down with his legs.

This game was more evenly matched than most anticipated. That's why the QB play was so important. In fact, the difference between Shough and Nix is what ultimately tipped the scales.

It wasn't "Tahj time" for Texas Tech

As the 2023 season wore on, Tahj Brooks became without question the best player the Red Raiders had. He would run for over 1,500 yards and earn All-Big 12 recognition. However, against Oregon, he was just an afterthought.

For some reason, Tech asked the injury-prone Shough to run the ball 23 times in this game. However, Brooks got just seven carries despite averaging a whopping 10.1 yards per rush.

It was the second game in a row that Brooks was underutilized while Shough was the focal point of the ground game. In fact, in the first two games of 2023, Shough had 20 more carries than Brooks. More than almost any other factor, that was a reason that Tech got off to a 0-2 start and let two winnable games get away.

McGuire's gamble backfires massively

Joey McGuire believes in analytics so much that his coaching staff literally goes by a book when making decisions during games. Sometimes that pays off but other times, such as against Oregon, McGuire is burned by that philosophy.

With Tech leading 27-25 in the third quarter, the offense faced a fourth-and-two at the Red Raider 33. Instead of giving the ball to Brooks, the play called for Shough to run a keeper and the result was a gain of no yards and a turnover to Oregon.

Six plays later, the Ducks would kick a field goal to take a 28-27 lead. That came after the replay officials overturned what looked like a Rayshad Williams interception in the endzone.

In other words, Tech's defense almost bailed its head coach out. However, it couldn't quite save McGuire from himself and this critical exchange proved to be the game-changing moment.

At this point, the Tech defense was playing well. Thus, the Red Raiders should have punted and tried to play the conventional way.

Who knows if the game would have unfolded the Red Raiders' way had McGuire punted here or if Williams would have been awarded the interception in the endzone? However, we do know that essentially giving Oregon three points was not a wise move on McGuire's part and it came back to haunt his team.

What this loss meant for the 2023 season

We all knew it at the time. This loss effectively ended any hopes of the 2023 season being special for the Red Raiders.

An 0-2 start guaranteed that Tech would be seen as fraudulent after so much offseason hype was heaped upon McGuire's program. What's more, losing to the Ducks meant that Tech failed to capitalize on the season's best opportunity for the type of win that legitimizes a program nationally.

This offseason, there isn't as much talk about the Red Raiders being darkhorse playoff contenders and much of that is because of the way Tech spit the bit in the first two games of last season, two nationally televised games that saw the Red Raiders make just enough mistakes to lose both.

Now, McGuire's team is going to have to earn everything it gets in 2024 rather than entering the year as a media darling. But perhaps that's for the best because this program never seems to live up to massive preseason expectations.