McGuire says layoff not to blame for Texas Tech's offensive struggles
Texas Tech’s offense struggled to get any rhythm going as the Red Raiders fell, 23-0, to Oregon in the Capital One Orange Bowl Thursday. With Texas Tech, the No. 4 seed in the College Football Playoff, defeated, teams who earned a bye are now 0-6 in the dance. Ohio State, the No. 2 seed, lost to Miami on New Year’s Eve. Did the extra long layoff play a part in Tech’s offense being unable to get out of the gate? Head coach Joey McGuire doesn’t think so.
“The tough thing is, if we use the layoff then we’re going to use an excuse, and we believe, in this program, you don’t make excuses,” McGuire told the media following the game. “You don’t let anybody make them for you. We’ve got to do better. If this is going to be what the College Football Playoff is, then we got to find a way to be better to win that game. I think more than anything, it was a mixture of playing a really good Oregon defense and us not executing at a high level. I think that whenever you’re in these games and playing teams that’s never been as good and never been as talented as you are, and vice versa, you’ve got to execute at a high level.”
Texas Tech head coach not buying into a Big 12 talent deficiency
In the buildup to this game, the Big 12 schedule the Red Raiders faced came up constantly as a negative factor in their pursuit of a win. Defensively, Tech showed it was more than capable of hanging with the Ducks.
“I know stats are a little bit different but they were rushing for over 200 yards against Big Ten teams, and they rushed for 64 yards today. I know some of that was in sacks and snaps and stuff like that, but we still did that,” McGuire said.
At that, McGuire felt the offense’s mishaps were not an indicator of a talent gap between teams in the Big 12 and the Big Ten.
“That was the best defense that we have faced this year, I do think they do a really good job schematically,” he continued. “Their defensive coordinator, defensive staff, did a really good job of giving us some issues. Go back, whenever you turn the ball over four times, if I look at the fourth down conversion, there was really one that was like a competitive gain that we didn’t get. So that’s a fifth turnover. The score was 23 to nothing. We were desperate, so they get that last touchdown that we didn’t hold them out. They scored 13 off of turnovers, we just didn’t play good enough. It wasn’t really the patch on anybody’s arm.
That’s a really good football team… We didn’t execute at a high level.”
Join the conversation with other Red Raiders on the Inside The Double T forum.
Subscribe today to get the most in-depth Texas Tech sports and recruiting coverage.
Follow us on X: @RedRaiderSports
Like and follow us on Instagram @rrs_rivals & like us on Facebook.
