On the Rock Chalk Podcast Andy Mitts and Albie Shore discuss what went wrong for the Texas Tech Red Raiders this season as they prepare to take on the Kansas Jayhawks this week.
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00:00 When you look at this season kind of coming in lower than what your expectations were,
00:05 do you think it's because of players not panning out the way that they're supposed to?
00:09 Is it injuries or is it kind of what we've hinted at in a few cases that I'm not really
00:15 sure that you know, Joey McGuire and the coaching staff is using guys in a way that's as effective
00:22 as it was last year.
00:23 And so like which one of those you think is the biggest issue with this team right now?
00:28 So it's interesting.
00:30 So I want I do want to go back to one thing you said is that in the fact that we a lot
00:33 of fans bought into the media hype.
00:36 And a lot of us did.
00:37 But I've talked about this before on our podcast, Tortezen Takes Podcast, that the media hype
00:44 was warrant.
00:46 We were an eight and five team from last year that brought virtually almost everybody back.
00:50 Right?
00:51 Even if you talk about Tyree Wilson going to the draft against in the ballgame against
00:54 Ole Miss, who's now a top 10 team in the country, we beat the crap out of them without Tyree
00:57 Wilson.
00:58 So you're telling me that you're bringing back 90 85 90% of your team, your starting
01:03 quarterback and your backup quarterback that was supposed to be really good as well.
01:07 All coming back next year.
01:08 I thought it was warranted.
01:09 But I think a couple things happened in this in this season.
01:12 So it's, it's easy to point to injuries, but I'm actually not going to point to that primarily
01:15 because I lost to Wyoming week one.
01:17 Right as healthy as you could be, we still lost to a to a group of five team, even if
01:20 it was a good group of five team.
01:22 So I think one is, is that though we went eight and five last year, there was a lot
01:27 of games we could have lost.
01:29 So I think that was one piece of it, right?
01:31 Houston, we could have lost Texas, we could have lost Oklahoma, we could have lost.
01:34 Like there was a lot of games that were coin flip games that for the first time in a decade,
01:40 Texas tech, we usually loses those cornfield games.
01:43 We're winning them.
01:44 We were, we could have just as easily been four and eight, five and seven as we were
01:49 eight and five.
01:50 So I think that's a piece of it.
01:51 And that a lot of those coin flip games from last year are now going against us this year.
01:56 So that's, that's, that's one part.
01:59 Another part is we're not, I don't, in my opinion, I don't think a lot of the players
02:03 are getting coached or they're not necessarily not getting coached up.
02:06 Well, I don't want to say that that's not a right way to say it, but they're not utilizing
02:10 our strengths properly.
02:12 Right?
02:13 We, we joked about it on TNT podcast and we do this every week.
02:16 Now what it seems like Todd's Brooks is one of the best.
02:18 He's one of the top five running backs in the conference.
02:21 There's a clear a group, even though I, ever since I mentioned Jonathan Brooks and Todd
02:26 Brooks potentially being the top two, only Gordon has spat in my face and said, I am,
02:31 how dare you?
02:32 But but there is a clear top five and it's both Brooks, Ollie Gordon, Devin Neal and
02:37 TCU running back.
02:40 Money.
02:41 Yeah.
02:42 Money Bailey.
02:43 Those are the clear top five.
02:44 And then there's a big drop off after that.
02:45 But you have one of the top five.
02:47 The difference between George, Todd's Brooks and the other guys, Todd's Brooks and money
02:51 Bailey and the other guys is that Todd's books in the mind of Bailey.
02:53 I mean, use like they should be like, that's really the big piece.
02:56 Devin Neal.
02:57 The only time Devin Neal gets to sit is because you have other great running backs that can
03:00 just fill his place.
03:01 Right?
03:02 Like that's not right.
03:03 Like Kansas honestly probably has two of the top 25 running backs in the nation.
03:07 Like with how good Daniel is a high shot.
03:08 So yeah, it all.
03:10 And then not been McDuffie.
03:11 I can not.
03:12 I mean, he's no scrub either.
03:13 So, and, and, and so y'all use Devin to utilize Devin.
03:16 The Oklahoma state utilizes all the Gordon Texas utilize Jonathan Brooks, right?
03:20 TCU and Texas tech, I think struggle at times because Todd's Brooks and Imani Bailey aren't
03:25 being used like they should be.
03:26 It was my, whenever we were previewing the TCU game, I said, you know, luckily for tech,
03:30 I don't think he's going to use the money, be like they should.
03:32 And sure enough, they didn't.
03:33 And so that's, and actually they're probably the one team that's worse at utilizing the
03:36 running back than we are.
03:37 I do think Kittley sometimes uses them.
03:40 We saw him in the new, in the Houston game.
03:41 He used Todd Brooks a lot.
03:43 We won that game against Baylor.
03:45 We use Todd's Brooks a lot.
03:46 We won that game.
03:47 But then you have games like BYU where we're not using them as much Kansas state, where
03:51 we're not using them as much.
03:52 And so now I look at this game and I say, well, this is a game where everything points
03:57 and says, Hey, you should run against Kansas.
04:01 Their secondary is very good.
04:03 That's where the strength is.
04:04 They have good corners.
04:05 They have good safeties, right?
04:07 Your receivers, your outside receivers this year, which is usually never a problem for
04:12 Texas tech to have good receivers.
04:14 This is an anomaly.
04:15 Receiver core is not great, right?
04:17 We're not able to get the extension and separation that we usually have been able to get.
04:20 And this is a good secondary.
04:22 This is the time.
04:23 This is not only, not only talking about the secondary, this is a, this is a defensive
04:26 line likes to tee off, likes to get sacks, right?
04:29 Let's run the ball.
04:30 That is my solid.
04:31 My thinking is if you're Zach Kittley, who loves to pass somebody, knock him over the
04:36 side of the head and saying, Hey man, Hey man, relax.
04:39 Look at the team you're playing.
04:41 Run the ball.
04:42 You have a top five running back.
04:44 You have one according to efficiencies, one of the top 10 efficient running games in the
04:48 country in the country.
04:50 Run the ball.
04:51 But Zach Kittley has also looked at that spat in his face and said, we're passing it anyway.