It was a long night for all involved at Jones AT&T Stadium Saturday, with Texas Tech falling to Kansas State, 38-21. The Red Raiders took a 21-17 lead early in the third quarter, but freshman quarterback Jake Strong’s three interceptions and a hefty dose of quarterback run from the Wildcats left too much adversity for Tech to overcome.

Witnessing Kansas State quarterback Avery Johnson’s five touchdown performance first hand was defensive tackle Jaylon Hutchings. Head coach Joey McGuire mentioned several times post game the “miss-fits” and lack of communication that plagued the Red Raiders in run defense, an idea that was shared by his defensive leader.

“I feel like one play we really couldn’t stop, we had a hard time stopping was the power,” Hutchings said. “The quarterback, No. 5 (Johnson), did a really good job, all credit to them. We were off on runs, we were off pretty bad.”

There was a string of issues that played a factor in Tech’s defense being unable to stop the quarterback run that proved deadly a season ago in this same matchup and once again gave them fits Saturday. Johnson carried the ball 12 times for 91 yards, and three of his scores came from within five yards. McGuire said post-game the team did not expect to see Johnson so much. The issue for Tech perhaps, was not necessarily who was running the ball, but the inability to get off blocks and get the defense set up properly.

“I expected him to play, just not that much,” McGuire said. “I mean, on some of those plays, me and you might score. You know, when you miss-fit, you’re out of your gaps, now you’re hoping and praying that your secondary gets the ball down, and can take another snap. That was the case tonight, we miss-fit those. I don’t necessarily know, if it was Avery or Will (Howard) running those plays, that it wouldn’t have been the same result.”

The Tech defense forced several stops in key situations, getting off the field five times and forcing the Wildcats to punt in those scenarios. As the game wore on however, stops became harder to find with Kansas State seemingly running the ball at will and the Tech offense struggling to stay on the field. The Red Raiders are banged up injury-wise. Tech missed two defensive starters, CJ Baskerville and Bralyn Lux, and a freshman linebacker who had been making a significant impact in Mike Dingle. Tech’s defense was forced to play probably more than was ideal in the second half and it showed.

“I wouldn’t necessarily say ‘gassed’,” Hutchings said of Tech’s stamina as the game wore on. “We made a lot of crucial stops. Towards the end, I feel like at that point, who has heart at that point? Even though you’re getting your butt kicked you still have to have some pride about you and finish the game strong. So first for the most part, I didn’t really see anybody go out there quitting or having an attitude, we still have to have some kind of dignity to us. Just gotta learn from it and move on.”

The big storyline of the second half was Jake Strong’s entry into the game with starting quarterback Behren Morton not fit enough to continue out of the break. There were positives and negatives in Strong’s performance, and the freshman had been taking reps with the first team offense since Morton got hurt at West Virginia. Wilburn said the offense was in sync with the young signal caller, despite the turnovers.

“There was no miscommunication with Jake,” offensive lineman Dennis Wilburn said. “He takes a lot of reps during the week and everything, we’ve been able to get in tune… We just have to be locked in more. Everybody just has to do their part, honestly.”

The Red Raider quarterbacks threw for nearly 300 yards combined and the run game finished with 182 yards, with rushes of 54 from Strong and 30 from Tahj Brooks. From a statistical standpoint, not the worst performance to be had, but the rhythm was never there for the Red Raiders. The 3-3-5 defense from the Wildcats loaded the box at times, and forced Tech into some tough situations to work with.

“I feel like we were getting good push,” Wilburn said. “Honestly, there wasn’t nothing that we didn’t see that we didn’t cover. I think we were able to get up to everybody perfectly. They didn’t do nothing out of the ordinary.”

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