Holgorsen's Take: Texas Tech Postgame 9/29
It was a tale of two halves in Lubbock Saturday afternoon as No. 12 West Virginia survived a second half rally from No. 25 Texas Tech to get a 42-34 win.
The Mountaineers, who remain unbeaten, racked up almost 400 yards of offense in the first half and took a 35-10 lead over the Red Raiders, but the second half was a different story as Texas Tech outscored West Virginia, 24-7.
“We played a really good first half,” Holgorsen said. “I focused all week on starting fast. I guess I forgot to tell them there’s a second half.”
“(We) didn’t finish very good, that’s on me. We gotta evaluate it and see what went wrong,” he added.
Holgorsen praised Texas Tech head coach Kliff Kingsbury and Texas Tech for its second half effort with quarterback Jett Duffey leading the way. Duffey took over for starter and true freshman Alan Bowman, who left the game with an injury at the end of the first half and didn’t return.
Despite nearly dropping the game, Holgorsen is happy that the team is still unbeaten and found a way to win on the road against a tough conference opponent.
“We’re thrilled to be 2-0 in the Big 12,” Holgorsen said. “Good teams find a way to win, especially on the road in the Big 12.”
Holgorsen isn’t exactly sure what went wrong in the second offensively for West Virginia, but credited Texas Tech defensively and simply said they just outplayed the Mountaineer offense in the second half.
West Virginia’s offense failed to score any points in the second half with the lone second half score from the Mountaineers in the second half coming on Keith Washington’s 51-yard interception return for a touchdown late in the fourth quarter.
Miscues, penalties and inefficiency on third down from West Virginia’s offense helped the Red Raiders build momentum and put themselves in a position to win.
“They wore Oklahoma State out in the second half,” Holgorsen said referring to Texas Tech’s upset win last week in Stillwater. “They played harder than we did in the second half today.”
Still, Holgorsen isn’t too worried about West Virginia’s offense after this game, but made it clear that the team needs to finish games and just handle success better.
“I think we’re a pretty decent offense, we scored 35 points in the first half,” Holgorsen said. “It’s probably going to be good for us. We didn’t play very good in the second half. We’ll watch it and probably learn from it.”
Although he didn’t have one catch in the second half, West Virginia wide receiver Marcus Simms racked up over 100 receiving yards for the third straight week as he caught a career-high nine catches for 138 yards with one touchdown.
Holgorsen said Simms has practiced more consistently and it’s translating into great performances.
“He’s just practiced well,” Holgorsen said. “The better he plays, the more he’s going to get targeted. He’s arguably our top wideout right now.”
Holgorsen also said Duffey’s appearance made it difficult for Tony Gibson and the West Virginia defense to prepare since they didn’t have a lot of information on him. Duffey finished 16-of-27 for 172 yards with one touchdown and two interceptions. He also added 86 rushing yards.
“It’s hard because we didn’t have any information on him,” Holgorsen said. “I was impressed with him.”
Holgorsen was also impressed with the play of West Virginia’s cornerbacks. The group was led by Washington who had seven total tackles along with his interception and Josh Norwood, who had six tackles.
Norwood though was ejected for targeting in the second half and will have to sit out the first half of next week’s game against Kansas.
“We got four of them, they’re going to get better. We got competition,” Holgorsen said of the team’s cornerbacks. “In a game like this and that kind of a deal, you’re going to need all of them to step up and play good and I was happy with how they all did.”
Holgorsen said it was a stressful game and really the first one this season where West Virginia faced a lot of adversity, but if the team is going to reach its full potential and fulfill the high expectations, Holgorsen said the Mountaineers will have to learn from the game and improve on what went wrong.
“I think we’re going to be able to learn a lot moving forward from what happened in the second half,” Holgorsen said. “If we’re as good a team as I think we can be, then we will make some improvements based on what happened.”
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