Red Raider Gridiron | Tuberville: I'm going to work hard this week, watch a lot of film, do a lot of drills and try to get better.

I do appreciate that the OC covered for his offense by standing in the gap saying openly that he did not like the call he made…I further appreciate that the HC covered for both by taking credit for the bad call as well.

With the OC I can see that he has opporunity to be wiser/smarter about that play, either get it down to where it is automatic—a qb sneak should be automatic for a yard—or find a play that will work out of the basic offense. I believe the HC allowed his OC to make the call in the moment by agreeing…maybe as a development opportunity.

With all due respect, I am reminded of our prior HC/OC going through similar experiences albeit w/o making improvement from the experience.

I find it kind of refreshing to have a coach say “my bad… I’m gonna work on it” instead of one generally sounding like he could do no wrong. Now… If it continues each week… I’ll begin to question what he’s doing… But for after the first game, I like the fact that TTubs shows he’s working too!

Three minuses

1. Offensive line play: There’s little depth, which isn’t likely to change in the near term. What can improve are the results. Tommy Tuberville wasn’t happy about the quarterback being hit nine times, nor with the inability to get a rushing game going. Tech’s running backs had 102 yards on 26 attempts.

"We gave up two sacks and seven hits on the quarterback," Tuberville said, "and then when you don’t run the ball for barely a hundred yards against a team that we should have been able to run the ball a little bit better on, we didn’t play that well on the offensive line."

2. Special teams: Allowing two blocked field goals is never good, even against a team that’s known for blocking kicks, as SMU was. Giving up a 92-yard kickoff return also gave the Mustangs hope right after the Red Raiders had gone up 35-14.

3. Game management: With a two-touchdown lead in the fourth quarter, someone should have said no to a risky fourth-down call from the Tech 34. Tommy Tuberville stepped up to take the blame, but offensive coordinator Neal Brown said it was his decision.

"I probably should have told coach Tuberville to punt it," Brown said. "I know better. I appreciate the faith. Next time, we’ve got to get that."

Three pluses

1. The secondary: Safety Cody Davis played a physical, instinctive game against the run. The young cornerbacks did well with three interceptions and allowing a long pass play of 26 yards to a run-and-shoot team led by a hot quarterback.

2. Lyle Leong: The team needed another receiver to join Detron Lewis and Alex Torres on the top tier. Leong seemed a good bet, given his experience and an Alamo Bowl in which he made a couple of big plays. He built on that in the opener.

3. Jonathan LaCour: The punter showed renewed leg strength with kicks of 60, 51 and 48 yards and touch, pinning SMU at its 6 with a shorter punt. Tommy Tuberville indicated last week he’d like to redshirt Ryan Erxleben, and performances like that can allow it to happen.

I would give another plus to the 78 second touch down drive before the half.

Great to Meet Everyone!!

RaiderDoc thanks again for hosting the tailgate. Jeffinhouston, Rdrpwr, TTU04 (you bastard), USAFRaider and everyone else. Great talking to everyone.

That will probably be my only game of the season – unless (God forbid!) we don’t actually win a championship, and end up in a bowl game in Texas somewhere.

Campus Observations

It was great to be back in Lubbock. The changes on campus are truly amazing. The developments over the last 10 years have really transformed the face of the university. Students, alumni and the Administration have a lot to be proud of in this regard.

The Jones looked incredible. I had not been to the stadium since UT in 2008. The new sections were great. Totally packed. Ribbon cutting for the East side of the stadium occurred over the weekend. The stadium is virtually symmetrical now, and the facility looks so impressive. I’m not sure how the architects and engineers will be able to expand it much further (structurally speaking), but the Jones has become a phenomenal facility.

Hell yes, we need a Jumbotron. Keep the Double T and replace the one on the North side of the stadium.

The Old Municipal Colliseum is a blight on campus, and I’m not sure if the benefit of the revenue generated from tractor pulls, monster trucks and indoor rodeos justifies the cost of having to look at that eyesore. I still remember playing my first basketball game there, and airballing a freethrow because the depth perception was so weird. The place definitely brings back memories. I will forever remember our Lady Raiders National Championship, watching some great Texas Tech basketball (yes, at one point we were very good!) and some not-so-great basketball. Surely the homecourt advantage at the Colliseum had something to do with it. It’s past time to put her down.

Pregame Observations

The tailgating scene that has developed in Lubbock has become one of the best parts of watching a football game. I loved wandering around the tailgates. It was a great way to see friends I hadn’t seen in years.

The RedRaider Club’s new tent outside the East Stadium is very cool. You can actually buy a 16 oz beer there for $5 a pop – that was something. No waiting in line.

Walked to the game with Goin’ Band. Hairs on the back of my neck were up! They were awesome – as always!

Mixed feelings on the Raider Walk, but I think it’s here to stay. I was in the line to see the players. I’m not sure exactly where the players started the walk, but fans were lined up 4 to 5 deep at least from the baseball stadium all the way to the Jones.

The coolest part was when Katfish, flanked by two Texas Rangers with cowboy hats and red ties, led the players out, flashed the Guns Up sign.

The players did not seem very hyped during the walk. They had their game faces on. Lot’s of guys with headphones. Very little interaction between the players and the fans, although the fans cheered anyway. I think this Raider Walk idea has legs, but it can be improved. Maybe some of the younger guys can be asked to whoop it up more and hi-five the kids so the fans feel a bit more involved. Just my $0.02.

Game Experience

Wow, it was hot! The thermometers showed 95 degrees most of the game. I was sitting on East Side in section 119 on the 40 yard line. We absorbed the sun all afternoon. For me at least, that’s the last bit of sun I’ll be seeing for 6 months, so I loved every minute.

The announced turnout was over 57,000. That seemed about right, and a great turnout for the first game.

The concessions were an utter disaster. Whichever company is responsible this role, failed miserably. Fans waited in lines for 45 minutes for food. Concession stands were undermanned. And the worst part on that kind of day was that the concessionaires ran out of bottled water. Unbelievable. When they did run out of water, they continued to charge $4 dollars for cups of iced tap water. Again, unbelievable.

My suggestions for improving this mess would be to put more staff in the stands, and bring back the drinks vendors that walk the aisles. Tech will sell more drinks, while fans can stay in their seats and enjoy the game. Without the vendors, everyone (and I mean everyone) ended up packed like cattle under the stadium.

Just about everyone turned up in red. I bought a black t-shirt, because, well, you know. . . ;-)

I wasn’t a huge fan of our uniforms. It’s just that at this point, I don’t even know what our uniforms are supposed to look like anymore. If we do make any future changes, maybe we can style our uniforms after Virginia Tech’s new digs. Those mat black helmets were freakin’ awesome!

Game Observations

A win is a win. I’ll take it – thank you very much.

Potts Guys, give it a rest. Potts played pretty well for the most part. The stalled drives came mainly from dropped passes and our line’s inability to open up running lanes for our RBs. Remember, Harrell was playing behind 3 All Americans, and in Potts’ case it looks like, once again, his line will take time to gel. I thought that most of the passes that he did try to “force” were the result of his attempt to thread the needle rather than a bad read (which would be a more concerning problem). I would also say that he was able to thread the needle quite successfully on more than one occassion, including, in particular, one of his four touchdown passes.

Potts was somewhat inefficient averaging 6.77 yards per attempt. He/the offense needs to get that number up to 8’s. Take back the dropped passes, and he probably does get pretty close.

On his throws, I noticed that he was making a concerted effort to pick up his back foot completely off the ground and step forward. This sort of exaggerated technique shows to me that he has been working on his mechanics. Other times he did throw off the back foot – I still don’t understand why that’s such a big deal. Those fade routes were amazing.

Compared to Potts’ season opener last year against ND State last year, I would say that Potts showed marked improvement. He played his game well. He’s not a natural scrambler and when the line breaks down, he is a sitting duck. The tradeoff is that he throws absolute lasers. I’ll take the trade off.

I am not sure how I score Potts’ 4 touchdowns and 0 interceptions as less than an “A.” I’m not sure in this performance that you can single out his mistakes as the singular cause for stalled drives. I place the blame for stalled drives on the shoulders of the O-line, dropped passes and in some cases unimaginative play calling (remember, Potts does not call his own plays anymore). I can’t recall an occassion where Potts was allowed to stretch the field.

Offensive Line

Very uneven performance. On the postive side, the O-line gave Potts time to throw the football. He was not under pressure very often. Yes, he absorbed a couple of sacks, but that’s inevitable in most games.

On the negative side, the O-line just could not open up the running lanes. Against SMU. Our short yardage problems from last year continue to haunt us. Run blocking and short yardage blocking has to be addressed. Things seem to have gotten to a point where we are just not a credible threat in these sorts of short yardage situations anymore
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The O-line, in my opinion, is the area where we need the most amount of work. Among all the various areas, I would say this is the aspect of the team that concerns me the most.

Running Game

Inconclusive. We did not see much production out of our RBs. This development is surprising considering that RBs became more integral to our offense last year as the season progressed.

I pin the RBs running problems on the O-Lines failure to open up holes. I was also surprised, however, to see that Brown opted not to run very many, if any, swing passes or screens. He might be “holding back the playbook,” but those sorts of timing and execution plays should be practiced in games like this.

Having said this, lack of talent at the RB spot is not my concern.

Wide Receiver

Good and bad. Lyle Leong was amazing. Franks and Swindell were impressive. Detron’s perfomance was marred by untimely drops. Corndog had critical drops (Í’m surprised that Tuberville highlighted Corndog’s performance as a positive frankly). We don’t really seem to have players that can stretch the field.

Solid pass catching in general. I loved the execution on the fade routes. Very limited YACs or so it seemed.

D-Line

Uneven. We definitely were putting pressure on Padron. I credit two of our interceptions to QB pressure. Padron panicked and made bad reads. Brian Duncan was a beast. We seemed more and more vulnerable to the delayed draw as the game wore on. SMU’s O-line was opening some pretty wide lanes.

Linebackers

As everyone has mentioned here, pretty weak. Tackling was poor, particularly as the game wore on. I thought SMU was very effective at sucking in our linebackers, and then calling the delayed draw. After the O-line, this is the area where I think we will need to improve dramatically.

Secondary

Wow. What can I say. They played great. Cody Davis was everywhere. Three interceptions between Johnson, Porter and Philips. We were promised that Tech would focus on bringing in more talent in the secondary, and these guys delivered against SMU.

This game gives me hope that we will be very solid in the defense backfield for many years to come.

The only time I really thought that we got “beat” was on DJ Johnson’s interception. The same wind that helped propel the 62 yard field goal for SMU also caught Padron’s pass allowing Johnson to recover and make the grab. It was a pretty spectacular grab in any case.

Special Teams

Awful. Two blocked field goals and allowing a near touchdown on the return. Four good punts don’t negate that dismal showing. We keep talking about “ifs” and “buts,” but those work both ways. Had McRoy not run down the SMU player from behind, SMU would have scored a touchdown rather than a field goal, which would have markedly changed the game.

Offensive Coaching

Average. I thought we had a pretty good game plan, but would have liked to see more of a running game. We started slow in the first half. First game jitters. So I’m ok with that. I thought Potts’ confidence improved as the first half rolled on. His best performance came on the last drive of the first half and the first drive of the second half. I would have liked to see some more aggressive pass plays that stretched the field, but I think the point of this game was to build Potts’ confidence.

I counted us going into NASCAR mode on at least four drives. The opening possession. The final drive of the first half. The first drive of the second half. And one other that doesn’t immediately come it mind. The rest of the time our pace was pretty normal.

I thought the play calling in the second half was pretty disappointing. It seemed as if SMU made adjustments, wheras we did not. We heard talks about limiting the playbook, but I think for the most part that we probably ran most of the types of plays we’ll see for the remainder of the year.

Nancy sparingly. When she did come in, she played on the weak side of the running play – i.e. we didn’t run the ball to the side she was playing.

The fourth down call was silly – as if Brown and Tuberville were trying to prove their risk-taking credentials to the doubters. The Offensive Line had clearly underperformed up to that point. It seemed pretty impulsive and unnecessary.

Defensive Coaching

Average. I thought we had a good game plan. Our D-Line put a lot of pressure on the QB which forced Padron into some bad reads leading to our interceptions. However, I got the impression at the end of the second quarter that Jones had solved our defense.

SMU’s lack of talent and the timely interception by Johnson prevented what could have been a pretty scary comeback. We gave SMU a lot of space, and I thought we were fortunate that SMU’s skill players were pretty slow allowing us to close down lanes.

In watching the game, I could imagine Johnson and Griffin having a field day running on our defense. I thought our LBs were out of position far too often, particularly in the second half.

The Fans

Hmmm. Interesting. The stadium was full, but well, you know, it was pretty quiet. Maybe it was the heat, I’m not sure. I spoke with a bunch of people after the game to get their impressions of the game – pro-Tuberville (and when I say pro, I mean as pro you can get) and con. Both groups of folks felt that the fans did not totally buy into what they saw, but remain willing to give our coaching staff the benefit of the doubt.

I only heard one loud Tuberville hater during the game (it wasn’t me!), that was pretty much it.

All in all, I think it’s fair to say that, based on the SMU performance, Tuberville has not quite “closed the sale” with the fans just yet.

Fans who were expecting to see a dominant defense, did not see one. Fans who were expecting our offensive play calling to be more dynamic, did not see it. SMU might be better than in the death penalty days, but I think its reasonable that most fans would have expected a stronger performance.

Personally, I am fine with where we are just because it’s hard to draw any conclusions from a first game, and the fact that in recent history it take our teams a while to come together.

Raider Power 10 (f/k/a The Ride) – first episode – is on right now on Fox Sports Southwest.