No. 10 Texas Tech led Arizona State 43-10 at halftime in Lubbock. The final was 53-25. The Red Raiders are 6-0 overall and 3-0 in the Big 12, and the question is no longer whether they are good.
Tech scored on its last seven possessions of the first half, four touchdowns and three field goals. That kind of stretch ends a game before the band finishes its show.
J’Koby Williams Had a Career Day After a Terrible Start
Williams fumbled at the Arizona State 2-yard line in the first quarter. Then linebacker Ben Roberts returned an interception 24 yards for a touchdown, and Tech never trailed again.
Williams finished with a career-high 165 rushing yards on 11 carries, with touchdown runs of 62 and 38 yards. Will Hammond went 18-of-26 for 232 yards, threw an 11-yard touchdown to Coy Eakin and ran nine yards for another. Kenny Johnson caught seven passes for 120 yards. Stone Harrington made field goals from 31, 42 and 37.
Tech has now won eight consecutive regular-season conference games, a school record, and 12 straight at home, one short of the program mark set in 1942. Joey McGuire is 41-18 at Texas Tech and 26-5 at home.
Arizona State Has a Quarterback Problem
Cutter Boley, the Kentucky transfer, started and went 5-of-10 for 124 yards with two interceptions in the first half. Mikey Keene replaced him after the break and finished 25-of-34 for 256 yards and two touchdowns, including a 74-yarder to Raiden Vines-Bright. Reed Harris caught his eighth receiving touchdown of the year, which leads the Big 12.
Arizona State is 3-3 and 1-2. Keene made the second half respectable, and the Sun Devils host Kansas State next Saturday needing to settle on somebody.
So Are the Red Raiders Real?
Yes. The case against them is the schedule. The Big 12 will not hand Texas Tech a marquee win, so the Red Raiders are going to reach December with a thinner resume than teams ranked below them, and the committee has historically punished that.
The case for them is everything that happened Saturday. This team is not winning on gimmicks. It broke off long runs on a Big 12 defense, its linebacker took a pick to the house, and it buried a conference opponent by 28 points after leading by 33 at the half.
Next week is where it gets interesting. Tech travels to Cincinnati, a defense that just gave up 45 points and a 464-yard passing day to West Virginia. Win that one and the Red Raiders are 7-0 with the Big 12 title game in clear view.
Undefeated in late October with a school-record conference winning streak is not a fluke. McGuire has built the most reliable program in this league, and he has done it in a place where that was supposed to be impossible. Texas Tech belongs in the top 10, and the gap between the Red Raiders and the teams ranked above them is smaller than the poll suggests.
A longtime sports reporter, Carlos Garcia has written about some of the biggest and most notable athletic events of the last 5 years. He has been credentialed to cover MLS, NBA and MLB games all over the United States. His work has been published on Fox Sports, Bleacher Report, AOL and the Washington Post.