A Guide to Texas Tech’s Explosive Offense
By Ross
Texas Tech’s offense is one of the most explosive in the entire country. They’ve scored over 35 points every single game this year. The Cyclones are going to have a tough time stopping Tech’s “Air Raid Offense”. Below I will give you an overview of Tech’s offensive weapons.
Tech’s potent offense is led by their junior QB, Seth Doege. The 6’1 QB is in his first year as the full-time starter and is already breaking some school and national records. In the second game of the season against New Mexico, Doege set a Division 1 record for highest completion percentage. Doege completed an outstanding 40 out of 44 passes for 401 yards and 5 TDs. The New Mexico game is one of three games in which Doege has thrown for over 400 yards. As you know, last week the Red Raiders knocked off Oklahoma in Norman. After last week’s performance (441 yards and 4 TDs) against the Sooners, Doege received national attention. Doege was the Walter Camp Football Foundation’s Offensive Player of the Week, the Rivals.com Player of the Week, and was named the AT&T ESPN All-American of the Week. You should check out his stats here and notice his QB Rating for each week, unbelievable. I could go on and on about Doege and his numbers but you’ll get a chance to see him tomorrow.
If you’re Seth Doege, you aren’t that successful without some good receivers. In last week’s win, Doege completed passes to 12 different receivers. Eric Ward leads the receiving core with 44 catches and 8 TDs. Ward (#18) was a 4-star recruit coming out of high school and the sophomore WR is Doege’s main target. #86, Alex Torres, isn’t too shabby either. He leads the Red Raiders in receiving yards with 475 and has caught 39 passes for 4 TDs. Torres, a junior, usually lines up inside and had a huge game against Kansas State two weeks ago as he caught 12 passes. Besides those two, Darrin Moore and Cornelius Douglas are two other players with over 20 catches. Oh, and Texas Tech still has Adam James (#82), the son of the worst analyst in college football (Craig James) and the guy who ultimately got old coach Mike Leach fired.
Tech lost a big part of their offense in their loss to Texas A&M. Junior RB, Eric Stephens, went down with a knee injury and is out the rest of the year. Stephens was having a great year, he rushed for over 100 yards in 4 of the first 5 games. Now DeAndre Washington and Aaron Crawford handle the load of the Red Raiders on the ground. They combined last week for 146 yards against probably the Big 12’s best defense. Tech can catch you off guard. You are expecting the pass for most of the game and then hit you with a run. Cyclone fans shouldn’t overlook Tech’s running attack especially since Iowa State struggles against the run.
With every good offense, you must have a decent offensive line. Tech’s offensive line is led by 3-year starter and preseason All-Big 12 OG, Lonnie Edwards. The offensive line is big, almost all of the starters weigh 300 pounds or more and stand 6’3 or taller.
So as you see above, Tech has a lot of offensive firepower. It scares me and should scare the rest of Cyclone Nation. Tech scores points in bunches and I just don’t know how Iowa State is going to keep up with Jared Barnett (even though he provided a little spark last week) in his first start.