West Virginia at Texas Tech

For Texas Tech, a crucial win over the Big 12 Conference leading West Virginia Mountaineers is on the line. The Red Raiders have connected for TDs 26 of the 32 times they’ve been there (81 percent), while West Virginia has found the end zone on just eight of 18 trips inside opponents’ 20-yard line (44 percent).

“I’m never back there to even hear it, so I hope none of that is going on”, Kingsbury said, adding: “We’ll leave that to the politicians to discuss”. “Our players feel comfortable and feel proud in playing before the home crowd”.

For instance, it’s safe to throw yards allowed out the window just on the number of plays that a defense is required to defend in any given game on the schedule. They’re big. Do a great job in pass protection.

ABOUT TEXAS TECH (3-2, 1-1): Mahomes leads an offense that averages 649.8 yards in total offense (second in the nation), ranks first nationally in first downs and is second in third down conversion success (53 percent).

The Mountaineers are ranked No. 20 in the latest Associated Press poll. If Red Raider Nation can manage to get up early, this one’s going to be exciting. “The crowd was electric and our players really fed off of it”. But, didn’t play as well in the second half. In my opinion, West Virginia needs to run the ball, then run some more and then they can run it again. “I think we can make a real run at it”.

Patrick Mahomes is good. He figures to have plenty of action this week against Texas Tech’s pass-happy attack, which will come at West Virginia from every imaginable angle.

On Saturday, the Red Raiders will aim for a repeat of 2012, when they toppled the fifth-ranked Mountaineers. “So it will just continue to get better and better”. “We haven’t played a very clean game the last two weeks, and we’ve got to definitely do that”. West Virginia will have to hold off Texas Tech’s aerial game.

Junior QB Patrick Mahomes, who leads the nation in passing yards per game (454.8), has plenty of receivers to pick from in the Red Raiders’ pass-heavy offense.

“When you think of Texas Tech you think of their offense“.

West Virginia coach Dana Holgorsen always has had the reputation of a maverick. The Red Raiders are a perennial sieve, while the Mountaineers are getting solid play from the likes of DE Noble Nwachukwu, SLB Justin Arndt and CB Antonio Crawford. Shelton Gibson and Daikiel Shorts Jr. have combined for 776 receiving yards and four touchdowns while Ka’Raun White has 16 receptions. Smallwood, who elected to forego his senior season, led the way with 163 yards and a touchdown while Shell finished with 111 yards and two scores. This will be a good week for Howard to eliminate turnovers because if he can, the Texas Tech defense is pliable enough that West Virginia should post some healthy numbers.

“I think their entire defense is good, really”.

“It’s a shame that we’re all in the same conference, because now you don’t like ’em anymore”, Holgorsen said on his call-in show. “They’re good at extending plays, extending drives”.

“It will be fun on Saturday”.

The meet features 21 teams, some of them among the best in the country: Penn State, Oklahoma State, Ole Miss, Cornell and William and Mary. “If they decide to load the box to stop the run, then we are going to have to make the necessary adjustments in-game to counter what they are doing”. TCU and Oklahoma State were two of the four losses last October.

While the Mountaineers have escaped with a couple of razor thin margins, they have also been on the wrong side of those scenarios in the past, so we’ll take it.