Offensive Drive Chart: Texas Tech v. Nevada

by Seth C on Sep 7, 2008 11:29 AM CDT in Texas Tech Football

The Drive Chart is a look at each and every drive by both the Texas Tech offense and defense. Thoughts, comments and opinions appreciated.

TEXAS TECH OFFENSE

Drive 1: TT 1st T21 15:00 Kickoff T30 12:33 Downs 4-9 2:27

Perhaps the first bad decision, in what would turn out to be many for Captain Leach. The drive started on the Texas Tech 21, and a Morris completion for 3, a Woods' run for 2 and a Woods' run for 4 yards led to a 4th and 1 by Harrell and he was denied, giving the ball to Nevada at the Red Raiders 30. Luckily, the defense held and only gave up a field goal, but it wasn't smart to give the ball to Nevada so early.

Drive 2: TT 1st T20 10:31 Kickoff T36 09:18 Interception 5-16 1:13

Not starting off too well. Crabtree's first reception for 9 yards and a Woods' run for 12 got an easy first down. Harrell then threw an incompetion to Lewis, a 5 yard penalty (1 of 9 for the day), another incompletion and then an awful interception by Harrell. Two drives and two bad decisions (one by the coach and one by Harrell). Again, the defense forced a Nevada punt in their subsequent drive.

Drive 3: TT 1st N00 07:51 Punt N00 07:51 *TOUCHDOWN 0-0 0:00

This is exactly what this team needed after two stalled drives, an Eric Morris punt return for 86 yards. Yea! Eric Morris.

Drive 4: TT 1st T25 04:39 Punt T44 02:25 Punt 6-19 2:14

Only one positive gain in this 7 play drive and it's nice to see Tramain Swindall make a significant contribution as Harrell and Swindall hooked up for a 24 yard 3rd down completion. After this play, Harrell threw an incomplete pass to Morris, a rush for no gain and a pass broken up, intended for D. Lewis.

Drive 5: TT 2nd T25 14:55 Missed FG T42 13:34 Punt 5-17 1:21

Another inept offensive drive. The drive started nicely with a Morris rush for 6 yards, a Batch run for 12, and a Crabtree catch for 4 yards. Two Harrell incompletions and a Texas Tech penalty, put the Red Raiders at 4th and 11 and LaCour shanked the punt for a net punt of 14 yards.

Drive 6: TT 2nd T32 07:20 Kickoff N00 05:18 *TOUCHDOWN 5-68 2:02

First productive drive of the game came in the 2nd quarter. Harrell went 3-3 for 59 yards, including a 50 yard reception by Crabtree. Of course on the half-empty side of things, the pass to Crabtree wasn't a thing of beauty and Crabtree was tackled at the Nevada 1. Bygones. Woods' punched in the touchdown from 1 yard. I, for one, breathed a sigh of relief after this drive.

Drive 7: TT 2nd T20 03:27 Interception T23 02:22 Punt 3-3 1:05

Nothing to see here. An interception by Richard Jones gave Texas Tech the ball at their own 20, but couldn't do a damn thing, except for a batted ball that ended up complete to Stephen Hamby, who gained 3 yards. LaCour redeemed himself with a 49 yard punt.

Drive 8: TT 2nd N24 01:35 Punt N11 00:53 Missed FG 7-13 0:42

Harrell was 1-5 for 13 yards on this drive after the defense gifted Texas Tech great field position with a blocked punt. Only 1 complete pass to Britton eventually led to a Carona blocked field goal.

Drive 9: TT 3rd T20 09:37 Fumble T29 08:33 Downs 4-9 1:04

I think we're developing a theme here. Harrell was 1-3 on this drive with a 9 yard completion to Crabtree. Another bad decision by Captain Leach to go for it on 4th and 1 from their own 29 and Crawford, not his fault, was stopped for no gain.

Drive 10: TT 3rd N39 06:37 Kickoff N00 05:20 *TOUCHDOWN 6-39 1:17

Daniel Charbonnet recovered a Nevada onside kick that gave Texas Tech pretty good field position. Harrell was 2-5, completing an 11 yard pass to Batch and a 15 yard 3rd down pass to Swindall, his 2nd 3rd down reception of the game. The drive resulted in a beautiful Morris run for a touchdown. Morris' ability always amazes me, he shouldn't be able to do what he does at 5'8"/170.

Drive 11: TT 3rd T26 00:19 Missed FG T28 14:21 Interception 3-2 0:58

I've lost count as to how many bad drives there have been, but this is another one. It starts off nicely with a long completion (underthrown, I think) to Lewis for 27 yards. A holding penalty (Byrnes) and a facemask (Reed), puts the Red Raiders at 1st and 35. Harrell throws an awful interception

Drive 12: TT 4th T07 13:19 Punt N00 11:34 *TOUCHDOWN 4-93 1:45

Perhaps the highlight of this game with a 82 yard reception by Crabtree from an underthrown Harrell pass, he spins our of a Nevada player grabbing for his jersey and races for the touchdown. Thank you Mr. Crabtree, thank you.

Drive 13: TT 4th T16 10:25 Kickoff N00 06:18 *TOUCHDOWN 11-84 4:07

For me, this was the best drive of the game. Texas Tech lined up with 2 tight ends for a large portion of the drive. The drive started off with two incompletions and Swindall coming up with another huge 3rd down catch for 15 yards. What was next was 5 runs in 9 plays that was interesting to watch (the 4 other plays were 4 Harrell incompletions). Batch broke off a 23 yard run, Crawford ran for 2 and 1 yards, while Woods had a 2 yard and 21 yard touchdown run. Best part about this drive was that it ate up 4:22 of the clock.

Drive 14: TT 4th T21 02:46 Downs N45 00:00 End of half 6-34 2:46

Again, two tight end sets with 5 of the 6 plays running plays. The only purpose of this drive was to run out the clock and Batch and Woods did a good job of doing that.

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Overall impression

Listening to the radio, it was difficult to tell exactly what the defensive scheme was for Nevada, but they did a good job of applying pressure. We all know that Harrell isn’t the most mobile guy, so he often doesn’t always deal well with that. For the most part, it sounded like Nevada was only bringing 4. That means that the O-line was not doing a good job of providing protection. Harrell mentioned communication issues between he and the receivers. I think the line was having those issues as well. While there were injuries that kept starters out, it doesn’t bode well for Tech’s depth on the line – which they will need when going against stronger defensive fronts to keep fresh legs in the game. But the experience for the 2 deep crew is priceless and will help that. Though I am still slightly concerned about good protection, I am comforted knowing that we didn’t have all of our starters in the game.

The most encouraging thing for me was something resembling a running game. In years past when the passing game wasn’t working, Tech has not had anything to fall back on. The ability to run the ball when necessary – and especially to be able to do so and run time off the clock at the end of the game – is huge for maintaining a lead late in the game. It is also good in that it give the D a break (which they could have used more of last night).

A couple of more tune-up games and the passing game should be firing on all cylinders by conference play. There are obviously some things to improve on, but overall I am still optimistic about the rest of the season. As Seth pointed out, Tech beat the spread by a touchdown. As I said last week, our guys have huge targets on their backs. They did what they had to do to win against a good team on the road and will be stronger for it later in the season.

by NM99 on Sep 7, 2008 1:31 PM CDT reply actions