Trouble Brewing in Lubbock

Brace yourself for a fall. A mighty, precipitous fall. The Texas Tech Red Raiders are the darling of the polls- 6th in the coaches’ poll and 7th in the Harris Poll. Undefeated, flashy on offense, part of the Big XII lovefest 2008 taking place in the national media, surly head coach…what’s not to love?

Peel back the sheets a little though and the Red Raider pajamas don’t look good. First and most glaring is the body of work- sure they’re undefeated, but over two I-AA teams and a bunch of unranked weaklings. The D-I opponents have a combined 15-21 record and Texas Tech’s schedule is ranked 103rd by Sagarin, 85th strictly ranked by opponents’ win-loss record.

The statistical look-see bears similar results. Number one in pass offense sounds great, but Texas Tech is 68th in rush offense so hardly a balanced attack. Worse yet, they’re a horrific 103rd in pass defense. That doesn’t bode well for any future stretch, but is particularly bad when three of the top 13 passing offenses are still on the schedule (Oklahoma- 3rd, Kansas- 6th, Texas- 13th). The Red Raiders are also 50% on field goals and 104th in net punting.

And speaking of future opponents, the remaining schedule includes # 23 Kansas, # 1 Texas, # 6 Oklahoma State, and # 4 Oklahoma. If that’s not enough, they’ve also got an improving Baylor team in the last game of the season.

So in case you’re not so good at math…lack of decent previous opposition + questionable defense and special teams + brutal remaining schedule = the DOW on a bad day.

The absolute best case for Texas Tech is they go 3-2 in the final stretch to finish 10-2. More likely is 2-3 with a final record of 9-3 which means another vacancy in the top ten and a weakening of the “Big XII is best” argument. Obviously the worst case is 0-5 with a final record of 7-5 which certainly is within the realm of reasonable probability.

Any way it shakes out, expect Texas Tech to fall quickly and provide more shake up in the BCS top 10.

You’re welcome.