echeese
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View from the Cheap Seats-Texas Tech
The tortilla bowl​
Sorry for being delayed, it was the 1st of 3 Marine Corps Balls last night and the culmination of a week long celebration of echeese’s milestone birthday on Monday. Party started last Friday with a tour of the Marine Corps Museum.A little something for everyone in this weekend’s road trip to Lubbock. If you are a glass half-empty kinda guy, you saw the Horns go on the road and do pretty much everything they could to give away the game with some very undisciplined penalties and a clear inability to put away a bad team. You saw the staff make some really brain dead play calling late in the game to keep TT alive and you saw them so worried about breaking records, they almost broke our MVP.
If you are a glass half full guy, you saw the Horns with clear improvement on both sides of the ball. You saw a defense that made big stands from the 2nd quarter on, forcing 7 drives of 6 plays or less which lead to either punts or turnovers by TT along with ending 2 long drives snuff out with 4th and out defensive stands.
Make no mistake, this was a CRITICAL game for both teams. Sporting identical 4-4 records, each team needed a win the Tortilla Bowl to have a real shot at making a post season bowl. TEXAS is all now all but assured of critical extra practice time with Kansas on tap in two weeks. Very important as both WVU (our next opponent) and TCU on T+1 have served noticed they are for real football teams. Face it, the Cheap Seats would change staffs with either in a heartbeat. It is almost scary to think how much stock it appears BMDs are putting into wins over 2 true mutts on our schedule in ISU and TT.
CFS managed to not lose on the road and won a game where the other team scored 1st as well as trailing at half time. Along the way he overcame the weirdest play of the season. Pinned at our own 1 yard line off an excellent punt (though we seriously question why our punt returner allowed the ball to roll from the 17 yard line instead of fair catching), TEXAS began a 98 and a half yard drive that would end with D’Onte getting stripped and TT returning the ball 99 yards for a 9 point lead and a 14 point swing in the game. Replay totally missed the TT defender stepping out at the 1 though that likely only delayed the inevitable. Still, why they play the games.
D’Onte is a Beast​
Stop me if you have heard the Cheap Seats post this before. 341 yards 3 TDs not a single play where he lost yardage, if not for his fumble an almost perfect day finishing 9 yards shy of the TEXAS single game rushing record. While we understand the desire to allow DF to break records, we seriously question the wisdom of giving him 33 carries. Kyle Porter showed he was no slouch as he logged 8+ ypc on 6 carries and we have yet to see Lil Jordan carry the ball despite his move to RB. D’Onte is CLEARLY the MVP of the team and key to making this offense go.
We think the only game this season where DF was not the Offensive player of the game was the week he was out injured.
Speaking of offense and continuing our half-full/half-empty theme, we saw Sterlin Gilbert with his best offensive game plan since the Norte Dame game. We saw some creativity in the passing attack though we still steadfastly refuse to run a jet sweep. Perhaps he doesn’t think players like Devin Duvernay and his Olympic class speed or Jerrod Heard with great elusiveness can execute such a simple play against a defense stack to stop DF. Who knows? Still, we almost used the middle of the field several times, several skinny posts and our unsung offensive player of the game, Jake Oliver, Mr Reliable, with 3 grabs from the inside slot position of a team leading 76 yards.
Of course we also saw why many think SG is out of his depth at the highest levels of CFB. 10:50 mark of the 4th quarter in a game we just could not put away, TT has moved within a score at 45-37. Offense goes turtle relying solely on DF. . .5 runs, 3rd down pass batted down . . .PUNT. Defense stands up, offense takes over with 7:35 left. . .clearly the goal is to get in at least FG position for a 2 score lead, run clock and put the game out of reach. Shane zone read . . .no gain. . .incomplete pass stopping the clock. . .incomplete pass stopping the clock. . . .3 plays, 0:37 seconds burned. . . seriously?????
And in a shock of shocks, we saw Gilbert FINALLY call a pass play out of the wildcat, good for a WIDE OPEN TD only to be called back due to a really bone headed blocking penalty. Seriously? We were saving this for TT???? Not KSU or OU, games we lost by less than a TD.
Back to the glass half full, we saw the Horns score a TD off the defenses lone turnover so now we are up to 17 points off the last 8 turnovers but more importantly, 17 points off the last 3 as well.
Shane struggled with some big drops and 3 or 4 balls batted at the line but is still showing he is QB 1 and will be for some time. In our version of “where’s waldo†we ask “where’s Burtâ€, he’s gone from budding star to non-existent while Collin Johnson shows (despite an ugly drop) he is very much the future. Not worried about the players in the passing attack. . ..we remain concerned our passing scheme self-limits to much but as we mentioned before, Sterlin certainly seemed to be dipping his toe into the area between the hash marks.
Defense’s best effort of the year?​
We think so. We gave up fewer points to ISU but is the standard at TEXAS now measuring our performance against mutts? Of course the 1st quarter looked like typical CFS defense, giving up 2 TD drives and a FG before finally forcing a punt. But from the 2nd quarter on, the defense came to play against a very good offense. Don’t get too hyped up, keep in mind TCU held TT to 27 and WVU to 17 but Tech is always a dangerous O at home amidst the flying tortillas. Sorry, the Cheap Seats thinks this is a pretty cool tradition.
After the 1st quarter, the D would only allow 2 TDs, they would force 4 punts, snuff out 2 drives on downs, recover a fumble then seal the game (still a 1 score affair) with a late INT. This effort vs Cal, OU and/or OkState would dramatically change the perception of the season.
Summation​
So far we have seen wins vs Norte Dame and Baylor (best victories of the year) exposed as fool’s gold. TEXAS’ sole win vs a team with a winning record is Baylor and TCU just took them to the wood shed. TEXAS continues to show an inability to put even weak teams away with only 2 games (UTEP & ISU) being decided before the start of the 4th quarter. WVU this weekend and TCU, last game of the regular season will be interesting. Can Charlie get us ready to beat a team with a pulse? If beating ISU & TT to assure a bowl game is enough for our optics concerned admin and BMDs . . .well that truly suck. Our best hope in the Tom Herman lottery is LSU finding some offense in the next couple weeks and winning out. Otherwise, LSU likely lands the best young/up and coming offensive coach in the nation while TEXAS settles for a coach who still does not appear capable of winning the conference much less being a factor in the playoff hunt and postpones the inevitable for one more year.
BigXII standings with Bowl commentary​
#1 OU .. . . Heading to the Sugar Bowl as long as they can get past Ok St to finish the season
#2 Okie State. Win out, win the conference, like OU, only 2 teams who control their destiny in the BigXII. Nice win over a solid KSU team. Bowl eligible. . .project them to the Cotton Bowl
#3 WVU Need some help to win the conference but win out and they are playing on New Year’s Day. Project them to the Russell Athletic Bowl.
#4 KSU Needs to win 1 to go bowling. Good news KU on deck along with Baylor and TCU. If they finish 6-6, project them to the Armed Forces Bowl (which sucks as I’d love for TEXAS to play there)
#5 TCU kicked the crap out of Rape U. Always good to see that. As DKR would say, the cockroaches need to win one of their last 3 but they face Ok State TEXAS and then KSU.
#6 TEXAS Like KSU, we need to win 1 to go bowling but we have KU on deck so odds are 99%. The question, how does TEXAS look vs teams with a pulse in TCU and WVU? Who knows, TEXAS could go to Armed Forces Bowl, Catus Bowl, Texas Bowl or even Alamo Bowl at this point.
4-6 largely interchangeable at this point
#7 Baylor Always nice to see rape u exposed, a fraud of a ranked team. Based on their pathetic non-conference schedule, they are assured a bowl spot. Today we are projecting Baylor to the Liberty Bowl
#8 TT Well they lost the Tortilla Bowl. . .loser of the bowl was going to need 2 wins to be eligible and TT must face Okie State ISU and the season ender with Baylor. Not going to be easy, they will need an upset of either OSU or Baylor. . . today the Cheap Seats projects TT left out of a bowl bid
#9 ISU. . .dog
#10 KU dog with more fleas.
If the Cheap Seats had a playoff vote​
#1 Bama
#2 Clemson
#3 Michigan
#4 UDub
#5 tOSU
#6 Louisville
Always nice to see aggie enjoying a week of faux success only to have the wax melt from their wings. . . . . flying too close to the sun ala Icarus. Face it, aggie always chokes under pressure Don’t be shocked if tOSU isn’t voted into the #4 spot over UDub for now based on their very impressive thumping of the Bugeaters (true story, in the early 1900’s, Neb was known as the bugeaters). tOSU and Michigan will decide the B1G playoff attendee on the field.
As always, the Cheap Seats welcomes comments, commentary and corrections.
