The Texas Tech offense is a thing of beauty and BJ Symons is a helluva QB. Raiders outgun Mississippi Symons has monstrous day in win By DON WILLIAMS AVALANCHE-JOURNAL OXFORD, Miss. - For a good portion of the game Saturday night, Texas Tech dug itself a hole with mistakes that included turnovers by the offense and breakdowns by special teams and defense. That's not what the Red Raiders will take from or talk about after a rare trip to Mississippi. Quarterback B.J. Symons led Tech on four long scoring drives in the second half — two in the final five minutes — as the Raiders rallied from double digits to beat the Rebels 49-45 in a thrilling intersectional game. Symons set school and Big 12 Conference records for the second week in a row with 661 yards on 44-of-64 passing, capped by a 9-yard touchdown to Carlos Francis that vaulted Tech in front with 1 minute, 4 seconds left. In all, Symons passed for six TDs and ran for one, helping the Raiders overcome four turnovers that led to 16 Ole Miss points. "Last week it was a record in a loss, so for it to happen in a win makes it feel like I actually contributed something," said Symons, whose 586 yards passing went for naught last week at N.C. State. "This is the best day of my life by far." It was just the opposite for Ole Miss coach David Cutcliffe. "I've never been involved in something quite like that," said Cutcliffe, whose team led by 12 points once and 11 twice, all in the second half. "I've been involved in some wild games, but this was certainly a game with wild and significant plays." Symons' passing yardage and his 681 yards total offense were both third-best in NCAA Division I-A history. All that production helped him win a shootout against Ole Miss quarterback Eli Manning, who had 409 yards and three TDs on 29-of-49 passing. The teams combined for 1,291 yards total offense. Tech (3-1) piled up a modern era school-record 713 total yards, 222 coming in the fourth quarter as the Raiders took advantage of the nation's 116th-ranked pass defense for a fantastic comeback. "I'm disappointed with the turnovers, but you have to overcome that and we did," Tech coach Mike Leach said. "I thought our players stayed pretty focused. We knew we could still make things happen, and that we would have some more opportunities." In addition to hitting Francis on a fade route for the game-winning score, Symons also threw a 21-yard touchdown pass to Jarrett Hicks and a two-point conversion to Clay McGuire with 5:00 to go that narrowed the gap to 45-42. Tech's defense — torched to that point by pass completions, penalties and long runs — came up with a three-and-out stop at the best time. On third-and-3 from the Ole Miss 27, the Raiders got a quarterback sack from defensive end Gathan McGinnis. It was only the third career tackle and second sack for McGinnis, who just returned this week from a partially dislocated hip that had kept him out all season. When the Rebels punted, the Raiders took over at their own 33 with 3:06 left, and then Mickey Peters and Wes Welker made the big catches on the 10-play, 67-yard drive. Peters bailed the team out of third-and-10, snagging a pass on the right side for 11 yards. Then in a four-play sequence, Welker worked free for receptions of 7, 21 and 15 yards — the first moving the sticks on third-and-6 and the last setting the Raiders up at the 9 for the payoff pass to Francis. Symons also threw scoring passes of 15 yards to Welker and 70 to Francis, both in the second quarter. "I was never worried, because our offense was just hurting ourselves," Symons said. "We had only punted two times, I believe, but the turnovers had killed us. I just tried to stay focused and confident and hoped it would rub off on my team." It wasn't over after the last of Symons' school record-tying six TD passes, though, because the Rebels still had just over minute for Manning to attack a defense that he'd been working over. Manning threw a couple of incomplete passes, then clicked on three in a row to bring Ole Miss to the Tech 32 with half a minute left. When he aimed a pass for wideout Mike Espy on the right side, Tech safety Ryan Aycock intercepted and carried it back across midfield, allowing the Raiders to celebrate their first non-conference road victory in 14 years over a member of a current BCS conference. They'd had a 12-game losing streak in such settings. The Vaught-Hemingway Stadium crowd of more than 54,000 was stunned because they'd watched the Rebels (2-2) run off 22 points in a row to build a 32-21 lead in the third quarter and had also seen Jonathan Nichols kick a school-record six field goals, all shorter than 40 yards. "Most of the time I believe in putting points on the board," Cutcliffe said. "In some situations, when the other team's offense is playing as well as theirs, sometime you consider going for it on fourth down. But tonight it never felt right." Welker wound up with 10 catches for 131 yards, Francis with nine for 184, Peters with eight for 114 and Taurean Henderson with eight for 94 and two TDs. Symons had 201 yards passing in the fourth quarter — and he had to to keep the Raiders from entering next week's Big 12 opener against Texas A&M on a two-game losing streak. The Raiders were down 32-21 after Espy caught a 29-yard touchdown pass with 9:36 to go in the third quarter; 39-27 after a 14-yard TD pass to Kerry Johnson at the 4:23 mark of the third period; and 45-34 after Nichols began the fourth period with his fifth and sixth field goals. In the third quarter, Symons sneaked 1 yard for a TD and flipped a 21-yard scoring pass to Henderson to keep Tech within striking distance. The Raiders wouldn't have needed the comeback had they not fouled up so much after building a 21-10 lead in the second quarter. The Raiders were up 21-13 and advancing the ball impressively in the second period when strong safety Kelvin Robinson picked off Symons and returned it 71 yards for a touchdown. Symons was looking for tight end Joey Hawkins on the play, but defensive end Charlie Anderson slipped past offensive tackle Daniel Loper and gave Symons a shot, causing an off-target pass. The Rebels added a field goal after that for a 22-21 halftime lead, then got still another field goal after Johnnie Mack fumbled the second-half kickoff. A fumble by Francis also set up an Ole Miss 3-pointer. Espy led Ole Miss with six pass receptions for 157 yards, and the Rebels' swift receivers caused fits all night for a Tech secondary playing without injured starter Chad Johnson and key reserve SirDon Lewis. Free safety Vincent Meeks exited in the second period after making an interception at the goal line. Tech officials don't comment on the status of injured players, but Meeks was helped off with what appeared to be a right leg injury and did not return. Espy caught a touchdown pass and a 58-yard reception over first-time starter Jabari Smith, and Kerry Johnson's third-quarter TD came over Jamaal Jackson. Marcus Boyd yielded a 41-yard completion when he appeared to be expecting deep help from a safety. When the Raiders couldn't keep up, they'd get flagged for desperation or frustration. Tim Norman drew a penalty for defensive holding, Boyd and Byron Johnson for pass interference and Smith for a personal foul. The Raiders were able to overcome it all, however, as Symons reached 16 touchdown passes in just four games. He's only 38 yards passing away from 2,000 for the season. The Raiders were timely, too, going 8-for-12 on third down and 2-for-2 on fourth.
Someone will shortly say "its the system". What I can't figure out if it's just the system, why the hell doesn't every school in the country adopt it if it can generate 700 yards of offense. Nice to nearly break 2000 yards in 4 games!
What's the point of putting up mind boggling numbers if you can't win? I'm not picking on Tech, just look at run n' shoot teams past and current in college and the pros. The Oilers are the perfect reason why the system sucks.
Unlike Rice, Tech doesn't consider beating Texas a national championship. I forgot Timmy Chang and the Hawaii run n' shoot lit you guys up last night. But don't worry TJ you still got your academics and baseball championship.
Yes Rice does have their National Championship, but I don't see the relevance to this thread. Texas Tech has a good team and is consistently disrespected and ignored by UT fans. Tech was better than UT last year -- they proved it on the field. I really don't see how UT fans can continue to live in their self-created world of hype regarding their program as you do, Smokey. Results matter, talk doesn't. Some fans haven't learned that yet.
That was to make you feel better since Rice cannot compete against the big boys or in this case (Hawaii) little boys in football. Tech beat UT. So what? I never said they weren't a good team. I just think the run n' shoot is a bad offense. UH put up Tech like numbers in the early 90's. Ware even won the Heisman cause of it. How many championships does UH have? I admit the run n' shoot did work for OU in 2000. I believe Leach was their OC. Good luck to Tech if they're trying to emulate that. Bob Stoops is why OU wins not the offense.
What's the point of putting up mind boggling numbers if you can't win? They can't win because they have a terrible defense. Their offense puts up plenty of points, which is the only job of the offense. Tech can beat anyone but top-10 caliber teams, basically (except Texas last year). Since they have to play some combo of OU, UT, KSU, NU, and CU every year, they keep losing 3-5 games, but if they had more talent on defense, who knows what they could do.
Didn't look like they could put up plenty of points against NCSU to help the defense despite Symons throwing for 586 yards.
It IS sort of the system. That system does not just include the plays called but the players recruited. Texas has a ridiculous crop of wide receivers that fit well into this system. There are also some high schools that are running similar systems (Ennis-Graham Harrell) that would fit in perfectly with this system. You have to give credit to Symons though because he's probably better than Kingsbury.
If Tech had an half way decent defense than this team would have won alot more games last year and would be alot better this year. Tech can put up points on anybody in the country, and the thing is Tech hasnt recruited any offensive stars. So I'm leaning towards saying that Leech just has a nice system. But BJ defintely will put up some record breaking #'s this year and if the team pulls some upsets along the way than hes going to be in NY. I just hope they can bring in some defense eventually then this team will be consitently in the top 15 or so till than they will be fighting for a bowl apperance
Count me in as a believer in the Texas Tech offense. It's very explosive, and they have a crop of fast, sticky-fingered receivers who can break a short dump pass for a long gain. Guys like Carlos Francis, Nehemiah Glover, Wes Welker, and Taurean Henderson weren't top recruits but have shown the ability to make big plays. The Horns better be prepared when the Red Raiders roll into DKR in November. Tech is capable of pulling off the upset again this year. Also, you can bet that the Tech-OSU game will be an old fashioned shootout. The game will take like 5 hours with all the passing these teams do.
The Oilers playoff collapses can be attributed to their offense. When you can't run the ball, you can't sit on leads.
I don't know that the assertion that the Oilers 'couldn't run the ball' is factual. I know Gary Brown had 1000 yards in only 8 games or something one of those years. I also don't think the Buffalo collapse had anything to do with offense. The offensive line was terrible against the Chiefs too.
Exactly Who care if it's the system or the player's own extra-special abilities. The offense's primary job is to put points on the board and Tech succeeds at that. The offense's secondary job is to stay on the field as long as possible. Running the ball effectively in the 2nd half of games is important, but Tech's offense throws a ton of sub-5 yard throws that when completed, are just as effective as run plays I think. I think Tech rolls over A&M big time. Tech is 6-2 vs A&M in the last 8 years.
Awh man I'm pumped for Saturday night. I hope your right about your prediction but I see a game similar to last years. IMO whoever has less turnovers will win the ball game. Its going to be a shootout, no question about it. It is very difficult to win in Lubbock so I think Tech will pull out a close one. If BJ again can throw for 600 yards on national TV, you can bet that Tech will start to be noticed.
a. of course it's the system. well the system and getting players who fit it, which to me is all part of the system. they switch quarterbacks and keep rolling and the system has worked in other places too. they can't get all the 6'5, 210, 4.4 receivers, but they get small, quick, shifty ones who can get open for their primarily 5 yd routes and they don't get big, strong armed quarterback but they get ones who can read plays well and make short accurate throws. as for why everyone else doesn't do it, well there's the saying "if it were easy, everyone would do it." i assume it's not easy to implement unless you know what you're doing and you have to have the right personnel. and the big programs who can get the big athletes want balance and more traditional offenses so they don't even try for it. and finally, have they played anyone good? ole miss doesn't seem like a creampuff but having the 116th ranked pass defense plays right into tech's hands. this offense can and has been shut down by good teams. if they figure you out, they pass on you all day. if you figure them out, they get shut down. look no further than UT last year and 2 years ago. last year, killed us and put up 42. 2 years ago did nothing and put up 7. nevertheless 661 yards is mind-boggling. and they didn't do it against death penalty smu in a completely classless manner. they actually needed it to win.
