Operation “No Stone Zone” a success for Texas Tech vs UCF
After facing difficulties in the red zone all season, Texas Tech dubbed it the “No Stone Zone” in a vow to convert more drives into touchdowns. Against UCF, that operation was successful.
The Red Raiders went 5-for-6 in the red zone Saturday versus the Knights, scoring touchdowns on all five drives.
“We called it the ‘No Stone Zone’, we didn’t want to see Stone (Harrington) out there kicking field goals in the red zone,” head coach Joey McGuire said following the 48-9 trouncing of UCF. “That was kind of the joke of the week. I thought we had good protection, we were able to run the football. We put in the Wildcat with JRod. We felt like that would give us a little juice, also. I thought they executed at a high level. I think the last touchdown that Reggie (Virgil) had, we’ve been trying to get that off for a few weeks now. We hadn’t been able to get that off to him. We needed that.”
Eye candy for the CFP committee
When Texas Tech checked in at No. 6 in this week’s College Football Playoff rankings, then-committee chair Mack Rhoades was up front in their evaluation of the Red Raiders. Simply put, the red zone efficiency, or lack thereof, was holding Tech back from being a top four team in the rankings. Some motivation for the team heading into this week? Maybe. But the execution level needed to be ramped up and McGuire has been harping on that for some time now.
“I heard the committee last week say that’s what’s holding us back from moving up. Maybe they look at that this week, that we are better at that,” McGuire said. “It was obvious what was some of the problems, not being efficient in the red zone. We’d already been talking about it that it just kind of became a joke. It’s execution. If you go back, we dropped two passes in the red zone last week. We’ve got to execute better. We have been really tough on ourselves with pre-snap penalties in the red zone. Today we weren’t. I thought we executed at a high level and playmakers made plays.”
Leftwich dives deep into his bag for red zone beaters
The Red Raiders and offensive coordinator Mack Leftwich got creative with their playcalling Saturday to alleviate some of the red zone struggles. There was, of course, the now-famous Jacob Rodriguez rushing play which he scored a touchdown on.
Reggie Virgil earned his first career carries in college, running the ball twice and scoring on both. Leftwich put together one of his best playcalling performances this season, which pleased McGuire.
“It was funny, if y’all would’ve been on the sideline, y’all would’ve laughed pretty hard because every time we run the reverse in practice, I always say ‘Could we please get that off the call sheet?’ meaning to call it,” McGuire said, referencing playful jabs at Leftwich in practice. “Can we please call it? So I’ve been on Mack the last couple weeks about let’s get it off the call sheet. Whenever (Reggie) scored, (Mack) turned around to me and he started yelling, he might have said some different words, but he said, ‘I got it off the call sheet.’ We’ve had that in, it just hadn’t come up. We do have some really good stuff that we just haven’t got to.”
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