Commentary: Tech not as bad or good as it seems

There’s an old dusty manual of sports sayings somewhere, and in it is this one: A team isn’t as good as its best game and isn’t as bad as its worst.

That one is true, especially for a program that’s still looking to escape annual mediocrity.

Two weekends ago, after rolling West Virginia, 48-10, Texas Tech fans were rubbing their hands in anticipation of a five-game winning streak and trying to mentally calculate who needs to beat who down the stretch for the Red Raiders to get to the Big 12 championship game.

Before 9:30 p.m. this past Saturday, one week later, overreaction went the other way. In wake of a 45-17 dismantling at home by Baylor, now was the time to bench half the offense, demote half the staff, and those hands weren’t rubbing each other in anticipation, but thrown up in the air in frustration.

The truth is, Tech is somewhere in the middle of those two back-to-back games, and fits in nicely, as do many other teams, with that old sports axiom.

For lack of a better description, it happens. It happens all over the country. Some of it is the mix of 18-22-year-olds and that every week is a new one. Some of it is parity. For sure, Tech is not the only team on Rollercoaster Island.

How to explain Oklahoma State, just one week removed from beating Texas? The Cowboys also beat Baylor in Waco, had a 14-point lead in the second half at TCU, and then got blasted 48-0 Saturday at Kansas State.

How to explain Notre Dame, which lost at home to Marshall and a bad Stanford team, and then goes on the road to hand No. 21 North Carolina its only loss by double digits and on Saturday went to No. 16 Syracuse and won by 17?

There’s No. 10 Wake Forest, which lost by 27 points to Louisville, where head coach Scott Satterfield has been on the hot seat. Or South Carolina, which jumped into the Top 25 last week only to watch mediocre Missouri come to town and win by 13.

For that matter, explain Baylor. The Bears gave up 43 points and 500 yards and had four turnovers two games ago in a 43-40 loss to West Virginia, the same team Tech dominated, and then goes out and plays flawlessly against the Raiders.

Some thought the moment might have been too big for Tech, sitting at 4-3 with a little momentum, playing a night game with a sellout crowd of 60,0000 and the defending Big 12 champions across the way. I’m not sure about that.

Tech may have been a little too comfortable, but for sure, Baylor was better prepared. It was a slap in the headset to a staff that hasn’t done much wrong in its first year, but was outcoached Saturday.

Defensively, the Bears took away freshman quarterback Behren Morton’s first read. By the time Morton looked elsewhere he was under duress from a pass rush that often overwhelmed Tech’s spotty offensive line.

In the first half, he was only 4 of 17 with one interception for 71 yards and was sacked twice, this from a player who had two consecutive 300-yard passing games. Tech offensive coordinator Zach Kittley played into the Baylor scheme by not utilizing the run enough. Tahj Brooks and SaRodorick Thompson combined to average 6.3 yards a carry, but didn’t get it enough.

On offense, Baylor leaned on its experienced all-senior offensive line to hammer out runs and keep possession. The Bears weren’t flashy, but ran 53 plays to only 28 for Tech in the first half and bulled their way to a 17-3 lead.

In the second half, the Raiders generated a little life, cutting a 24-3 deficit to 24-17 with 2:46 left in the third quarter on Morton’s 8-yard run on fourth-and-goal. But that was as close as Tech would get.

When Baylor’s Tevin Williams was given an interception on a ball that he and Tech’s J.J. Sparkman came down with simultaneously in the Bears end zone with 8:09 left, that basically ended any comeback. Had the call gone the other way, it would have been 31-24, but what looked like the correct call stood.

Baylor had five interceptions, two of them in the Bears end zone and another a pick-six with 4:04 to play. Certainly turnovers contributed to Tech’s demise, but that’s not the reason the Raiders lost.

Baylor owned possession a ridiculous 40:17 of a 60-minute game. The Bears seemed better in almost facet and looked for long stretches like the team that was ranked No. 10 in the preseason.

This season is and was always going to be a work in progress. There were reasons this team was picked eighth in the Big 12. It’s also about setting a foundation through thick and thin in future years.

First-year coaches aren’t going to be magicians in their first year. Matt Rhule and Dave Aranda won one and two games in their first years before winning Big 12 titles. Sam Pittman won three games at Arkansas. Brett Bielema was 5-7 at Illinois last year, and his team is 7-1 and a top 15 team. Chip Kelly won 10 games in his first three years at UCLA and now the Bruins are a top 10 team.

Tech fans need to have the stomach for games like this. It’s more the norm than not for a program still trying to climb out of the wilderness.

Jon Mark Beilue is a 1981 graduate of Texas Tech. He has been writing about Red Raiders sports for five decades.