Texas Tech football 2023 rewatch: What went wrong in Wyoming?

Garcia's struggles doom Texas Tech

Another huge factor in Tech's loss to the Cowboys was the kicking game. Specifically, placekicker Gino Garcia missed three of his five field goal attempts that day as he got off to an awful start to the season.

He started by making a 54-yard kick in the thin Wyoming air, though. However, he would then miss a 49-yard kick as time expired in the first half. That kick was a bit rushed as confusion on the part of the officials as they spotted the ball seemed to throw off the timing of the execution.

On Tech's second drive of the third quarter, Garcia kicked a low ball that was blocked. At the time, the 40-yard field goal attempt would have put the Red Raiders ahead 20-17.

Then, with 5:06 to go in regulation, Garcia missed another long FG attempt, this time one of 50 yards. That would have tied the game at 20. Finally, he would accomplish that goal and send the game to OT by hitting a 27-yard FG in the final minute to somewhat redeem himself.

What's interesting is that McGuire loves to go for it on fourth down and one would think that he would have done so given the struggles of his kicker. However, on each of the drives that ended with a Garcia FG try, there was no opportunity to go for it given the situation. McGuire had no choice but to kick the last-season FG at the end of the first half and on the four other kicks, Tech needed an average of 10.2 yards to pick up the first down.

Thus, this game was put on Garcia's leg and he didn't come through. For the year, he would miss only six total kicks. Three of those came agianst the Cowboys and had even one of those just been converted, Tech could have escaped with a win.