Texas Tech is 4-1 to start the 2024 season, the best start for a Tech team since the 7-0 start in 2013. While it hasn't been pretty, and nowhere near perfect, the Red Raiders continue to find a way to win, and did against Cincinnati, 44-41.

"I am so proud of this football team. You know, hats off to Cincinnati, they're a really good football team, and we talked about it all week," head coach Joey McGuire said.

"We thought it was going to be a four quarter game. But, man, I'm so proud of this team...It's good to be 2-0 in the Big 12 and 4-1 overall, and we're going to enjoy this one."

The Red Raiders escaped in the end, as a 51-yard field goal went wide-right and short from the Bearcat kicker Nathan Hawks, but it was some savvy personnel management from the Red Raiders to burn some extra clock.

In a call back to the 2022 Oklahoma State game where Tech was on the receiving end of this, Tech was able to slow sub after Cincinnati made a substitution, taking an extra 13 seconds off the clock, and likely taking away one or two plays from the Bearcats.

"That's one thing we practice a lot, and it's coming from the box as soon as they start seeing somebody come off," McGuire said. "How ever many seconds it was, it was so critical."

A wild affair, one where the Red Raiders gave up 555 yards of offense, but found a way to escape with the win, McGuire was proud of the way his defense stopped the run and came away with key turnovers but sees room for improvement in all phases.

"It just goes back those big plays. I mean, any kind of big plays in games like that, first thing is like, hey, blown coverages, it wasn't that, it just always goes back to fundamental football," McGuire said. "We're not sacking the quarterback, you know. And so now we're hanging our secondary out to dry because they're gonna cover longer than what they should have to cover. Part of that is we're not containing the quarterback, you know. And we've definitely a week from now got to do a good job."

McGuire was also excited about his offense, which leaned on it's star in Tahj Brooks, but also saw key contributions from it's quarterback Behren Morton and it's skill group out wide.

"Tahj Brooks, you know, it's something that we're all accustomed to seeing the last two years, he goes for 172 yards and was really special tonight," McGuire said. "I thought Behren stepped up and made some big throws, you know, and we had some guys that made some big catche. It was great to see Josh Kelly get going, because I felt like in the first, first couple possessions for us, they were really trying to take him away."

The Red Raiders now take the show on the road after a perfect homestand in the win-loss columns with a trip to Arizona on what will be an extremely late night in Tucson.