Central Arkansas

Central Arkansas vs. Texas Tech -08/30/14

LUBBOCK, TEXAS-

Give them an inch, and they''ll take a mile

The excruciating wait for Fall Saturdays with Texas Tech football is finally over. On Saturday night the Kingsbury-led high-flying offense of Texas Tech, clad in scarlet and black, made their first appearance of the 2014 season since defeating the No.14 ranked Arizona State Sun Devils in the National University Holiday Bowl in San Diego. After their stellar performance against Arizona State came increased expectations, increased hope, and all around good feelings in relation to the future of the football program and Kingsbury's second season.

To put it mildly, the feeling of euphoria and excitement that came with that win about 244 days ago has been completely reversed with a lackluster, penalty-filled, frustrating performance by all three sides of Tech's football team. Is this some sort of indictment of Kingsbury's bro-coach aura? Probably not, in fact, I would be inclined to believe the exact opposite. While no one enjoys not beating easy teams as well as they should, Texas Tech has historically struggled in games it had no business not struggling with. 

My "10 takeaways" from last night:

1. Tangled Webb- Davis Webb looked shaky early on, his timing seemed off and he was missing receivers either too high or too low for the first two quarters. While only one of the INT's can really be blamed on him, it was tough to see him take a safety due to intentional grounding in the end zone and not settle down until sometime in the third quarter. He will need to be much more poised and calm in the coming weeks, especially at UTEP in El Paso, both because it is a road game and also because he will be in El Paso around midnight. Nothing good ever happens in El Paso around midnight.  However, is his performance reason to panic? No, it is after all, only the first game of the season, and while his performance in the first half was rather pedestrian, he seemed to regain his mojo and found Marquez for a pair of much needed touchdowns in the second half. Webb will be fine, he has all the intangibles and skill required to run the Texas Tech offense.
2. Rika Levi- Anyone who has ever quipped that a single player does not make or break a team has obviously never met 360lb Rika Levi, nor do they understand simple physics, as a 360lb big dude is a lot harder to run through than a leaner 240lb dude. Tech needs its big guy to be ok, and while his injury did not look severe, Rika never reentered the game for Tech while an already thin defensive line struggled to shutdown the Bear's running back attack. Get well bud, we need you.
3. Stop the breaks- For what seemed like the entirety of the game Texas Tech was unable to stop the Bears from running the ball right at them. In this situation it seems to be more of a 'Jimmy & Joes' problem rather than an Xs & Os issue. That is, Texas Tech is replacing Kerry Hyder and Dartwan Bush, both lost to graduation from the 2013 team. To be competitive in the coming weeks something will need to be done concerning the Red Raider's defensive line. While Tech has had issues with fielding an undersized defensive line these past few years it was thought that the inclusion of Rika Levi, all 360lbs of him would somewhat remedy that situation. Levi's injury, the severity of which remaining to be seen, combined with upcoming games against run-happy UTEP and Arkansas, Tech will need to figure out a way to stop the run. Quickly.
4. The Crowd- With the football team struggling to put away FCS Central Arkansas for much of the night it would have been real easy, maybe even understandable, for the Texas Tech faithful to turn on their Red Raiders and file out in droves by the end of the third quarter. Instead, the majority of students, fans and alumni remained until the end of the Matador Song. 
5. Long lines/Keeping students at bay- Minor gripe: I'm not sure what the exact situation was or if their was a larger issue, but for some reason Texas Tech or G. Boren Services decided to keep many of the assembled Texas Tech students at bay, waiting to be 'let in' only after large crowds had formed. 
6. Replacing Amaro & Ward- While there is no way of directly replacing Jace Amaro and Eric Ward's contributions to the Texas Tech offense I felt Tech did a good job of focusing on Jakeem Grant and Bradley Marquez. These two receivers along with highly regarded Devin Lauderdale and D.J. Polite-Bray should bring another meaning to the term 'speed kills'.
7. Penalties- As much as Texas Tech struggled against Central Arkansas they didn't make things any easier for themselves with senseless holds, unsportsmanlike conducts, and personal fouls. There were numerous times where Tech would obtain a huge first down on offense or third down stop on defense only for it to be wiped out because of a boneheaded mistake. You can't go forwards if you're going backwards.
8. Underrated- The Big XII- apart from Iowa State's loss against NDSU, and Texas Tech's own performance against Central Arkansas, the rest of the Big XII played markedly well against Alabama and Florida State. 
9. Overrated- The thought that Texas Tech's run defense would be a vast improvement over last year's unit. Through the first half of games in 2013 the Raider defense looked sufficient, the last half? Not so much, it wasn't until the Holiday Bowl, which featured a mostly injury-free defense that you saw the Red Raiders adequately respond to a D1 offense. As bad as that sounds it was actually a lot worse on Saturday night, with an injured Rika Levi, true freshman corners on each side of the field, and an undersized defensive line Texas Tech struggled mightily against a team they should have been able to keep from rushing more than 100 yards. To add insult to injury the Red Raiders also struggled in TO department. Once again, they were unable to come up with any INTs or fumble recoveries, while UCA intercepted Davis Webb twice. Another area of concern would be the Special Teams gaffes observed on Saturday night, while its understandable that Texas Tech probably will not run every kickoff or punt back for a touchdown, I was fairly disappointed in our inability to field a competent unit. Maybe it was first-game jitters or the sun obscured his vision but Cameron Batson fumbling the ball on a UCA punt could have been disastrous. While the inclusion of Special Teams coordinator Darren Chiaverini alleviated a lot of the worry built up from years of onside kicks and punt returns gone awry this was an area of the team I was most looking forward to seeing an improvement. I understand it is the first game but with Texas Tech's defensive struggles they really need to get their act together. Fast.
10. Game ball- The running-back corps- the combination of DeAndre Washington, Quinton White, and newcomer Justin Stockton provided a much needed run game that was missing for much of 2013. Furthermore, while Davis Webb seemed shaky in the first half of last night's game the run game was consistent throughout. It's been way too long since Red Raider fans have been able to see a Tech running back break a play for 10+ yards consistently.