Texas-Texas Tech: Can 'Horns Exploit Weakened Red Raider Secondary?

Case has had success throwing the ball down the field. Nobody’s going to confuse his arm with John Elway’s, but he got off decent passes in the UCLA and Iowa State games. This is pure conjecture, but IMO, Case seems to see the field develop better than Ash.

Ash has been much more erratic in comparison. He had the one nice deep ball to Davis against ISU, but otherwise, most of his completions have come from short come back routes where he was throwing to a target who was basically waiting for the ball (not on the run).

I don’t think there’s any question the smart money is to run, run, run this Saturday until they stop us and hopefully use some play action for an occasional deep ball (which certainly suits Ash’s game), but if we should find ourselves in 3rd and long situations, I’d be for bringing Case in.

Where Texas came out in play action and tried to throw bombs?

I know that was a couple months and 1.5 quarterbacks ago. But that was the game’s first series, coming off a game where Harsin had showed he wanted to be a run-first team.

I think we’ll see something like that this week. Goad those safeties into the box, play action, and throw over top to single-covered receivers. Let’s hope it works.

That Darius White will have his lightbulb moment and become a target for Ash. He just has to, there’s no way he is just sitting wasting away. Please, please arrive and strap this WR group on your back D-Money.

We need to run run run, then draws, screens and keep running, even if they stop us a few series. If we see Ash trying to throw downfield….he will be intercepted and we will lose.
He is not ready and if we turn the ball over against a quick strike O like Tech, its over.

As bad as KU’s defense was, TT’s secondary is better. And yes you are right, Ash has no connection with his receivers. Simply based on these facts, the smart play is run, run, run and when that doesn’t work….try some more runs.

As soon as we get one or two stops, the running game should be able to take it from there and kill the clock and Tech’s chances.

but part of the issue with play-action passing is the offensive line holding their blocks long enough for plays to develop down the field. Texas Tech is tied with Texas with only 10 sacks on the season and while that doesn’t tell the story of how much pressure they’ve gotten on the quarterback, they certainly haven’t achieved the desired end result by creating sacks and the type of negative plays that end drives, so that doesn’t factor as a concern as much as it would against a team with a better pass rush.

I am not ready to throw in the towel on Ash, but to me it doesn’t look so much like a pressure thing, except OU, as it does he just is not ready to read all the mixed coverage things he’s seeing. In his defense he is just a freshman, all the D coordinators know this as well, so they give him plenty to confuse him. All the more reason to not put the game on his arm, or head.

I just caught the injury to Shipley on MBTF kansas highlight reel from LHN. I think the tape may have been the only thing holding his foot on. I would be very surprised to see him on the field this weekend.