2014
Texas Tech
College Football
Betting Preview
with Schedule
Kliff Kingsbury wasn’t happy with how Texas Tech closed out last year, losing the last five Games of the regular season. Yet, they still finished with a solid eight wins in his first season. The Red Raiders return most of the pieces from one of the nation’s top passing offenses, so expect plenty of points once again from them.
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Davis Webb is planted in as the starting quarterback from day one, and according to almost everyone in camp, he’s much improved from a year ago. Although there’s not much he can improve on from last year’s 403-yard, 4-TD bowl-Game performance against Arizona State. Even though he loses his top receivers, Webb still has plenty of talent to use with Jakeem Grant (796 yards) and Bradley Marquez (633 yards), along with breakout candidates in Reginald Davis and D.J. Polite-Bray.
The offensive line returns three starters and shouldn’t be a problem for the offense. This isn’t much of a running team, but DeAndre Washington moves into the backfield as the starter and should post decent numbers on the ground and through the air. In Four of Texas Tech’s five losses last year, this offense put up at least 30 points on the board.
And that’s where this team has trouble, on the defensive end. It doesn’t help matters with only Four returning starters. The entire line could be made of junior college transfers and one of the starting linebackers is last year’s starting running back, Kenny Williams. The secondary doesn’t return any full-time starters, but they have some promise in the young guys coming up as the unit will likely go with three sophomores and one junior.
Needless to say, the Red Raiders don’t have the best defense in the conference, but they can’t get much worse than last year. The newcomers will hopefully infuse a new mentality into group and maybe they will allow less than 50 points to the top teams in the conference.
Texas Tech has an interesting Schedule that works largely in their favor. They start the season with what should be three non-Conference wins, although Arkansas could give them trouble if the defense doesn’t figure things out.
After coming off three wins, they’ll start Big 12 play with two road Games at OK State and Kansas State, but those are followed by three winnable Games. And after that, much like a season ago, the Red Raiders will finish the season with some of the best teams in the Conference getting Texas, Oklahoma and Baylor in three of their final Four Games.
We all know the offense can produce, but if the defense can’t stop anyone again, there’s no telling what this team will do. To get over that eight-win hump, Texas Tech will be looking to upset one of those teams late in the year like Texas or maybe in the neutral-site Game against Baylor.
2014 Texas Tech Football Schedule
Aug. 30 vs. Central Arkansas
Sept. 6 at UTEP
Sept. 13 vs. Arkansas
Sept. 25 at Oklahoma State
Oct. 4 at Kansas State
Oct. 11 vs. West Virginia
Oct. 18 vs. Kansas
Oct. 25 at TCU
Nov. 1 vs. Texas
Nov. 15 vs. Oklahoma
Nov. 22 at Iowa State
Nov. 29 vs. Baylor (in Arlington)