Saturday Blitz Big 12 Power Rankings Week 2
7. Texas Tech Red Raiders, 2-0 (0-0), Defeated UTEP 30-26 Last Week
I guess 2-0 is 2-0, but it’s not pretty. For the second straight week, the Red Raiders had to escape for a victory. Both times it happened in the fourth quarter, and this time they had to score a touchdown with less than 3 minutes left to do it. Not a great look in Kliff Kingsbury’s second year as head coach.
Perhaps the worst part about the two games is they weren’t against great teams. Central Arkansas, is, well, it’s not worth explaining why Texas Tech should have blown them out. UTEP, meanwhile, had a nice victory against New Mexico last week, but that was against New Mexico. And this team is UTEP, who was awful last year. They went 2-10.
The Red Raiders still might be good enough to make noise in the Big 12, and these two games could be aberrations. But the high-powered offenses that Kingsbury is used to running are supposed to be much better against sub-par teams, and if he’s going to rely on outscoring people in games, a 30-26 win against a terrible team is not how you do that.
So for right now, Texas Tech belongs at the bottom of this list.