sports@dailylobo.com
The last two minutes of the first half at Texas Tech were a series of unfortunate events for the Lobo football team, resulting in a 49-14 loss.
The Lobos (1-2) were down 28-7 with a little more than two minutes left when sophomore Chase Clayton returned a 98-yard kickoff return for a score, his second of the year, to bring the Lobos up to 14 points.
Texas Tech (3-0) answered right back with a 1:32 drive, recovered an on-side kick and scored the final touchdown of the half. Red Raider quarterback Seth Doege tossed an 11-yard score to Darrin Moore with only five seconds left in the half to push the lead to 42-14.
Junior linebacker Dallas Bollema said UNM has to keep working on its scheme in order to stop spread offenses like Texas Tech.
“We are going to see more spread offenses; we just have to keep working on our zones right now and keep everyone involved in the game,” Bollema said.
UNM couldn’t slow down the Red Raider offense in the first half as Texas Tech tallied 455 yards of total offense, with Doege accounting for 302 yards through the air.
Head football coach Bob Davie said he wasn’t satisfied with the Lobos on either side of the ball.
“I’m embarrassed by the performance. We were awful. Let’s call it what it is,” he said. “We are starting this thing over Monday.
There is a shared responsibility to get this right. We were so bad that there is no excuse for how bad we were on defense.”
The Lobo offense mustered 88 yards in the first half, the majority of which came off of a 79-yard touchdown drive, capped by junior running back Demarcus Rogers’ 2-yard touchdown run to make the score 14-7 at the start of the second quarter.
Senior starting quarterback B.R. Holbrook said Texas Tech doesn’t deserve all of the credit for its victory.
“They took a lot of things we wanted to away. We never really could get into a rhythm tonight,” he said. “It seems like we beat ourselves tonight.”
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Doege continued his dominance of the Lobo secondary with five touchdown throws in the first half; he also had five touchdown passes in last year’s contest.
Luckily for the Lobos, Texas Tech pulled the reigns in the second half. The Red Raiders reached the end zone one more time with Doege’s career-best sixth touchdown pass with 12:35 left in the third quarter to put Texas Tech up 49-14.
“Their twos (subs) were in there the most part of the second half,” said Davie. “I guess it’s good to be good friends with Tommy (Texas Tech’s head coach) because he pulled the dogs off.”
Doege ended the game with 340 passing yards going 27-of-35 with six touchdowns through the air. Doege completed three touchdowns to redshirt junior wide receiver Eric Ward and two to sophomore tight end Jace Amaro.
The Red Raiders finished the contest with 702 total yards of offense and had two 100-yard rushers against UNM. Eric Stephens had 118 yards with a 9.8 average, and Kenny Williams gained 105 yards with a 7.5 average per carry.
The Lobos’ vaunted option attack churned out just 84 yards on the ground on 35 attempts with a 2.4 yards-per-carry average.
“We have to go home and we have to look in the mirror across the board,” Davie said. “We have to start coaching better. It’s that simple.”
