5 takeaways from Texas football’s backbreaking OT loss to Texas Tech

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Turnover battle subdues Texas

A huge issue for McGuire and the Red Raiders in the first few games of the season were turnovers. Texas Tech was losing the turnover battle by an average margin of two in each game to start the season. Considering that stretch included a game against the FCS Murray State Racers, it was clear that Donovan Smith and the Red Raiders had some real trouble taking care of the football in the early season.

But the turnover issues somehow faded away completely for Texas Tech in this game. Texas wasn’t able to wreak much havoc or cause much confusion from this Texas Tech offense. That was partly thanks to a lack of pressure that Texas got on Smith and the Red Raiders in their backfield (which we’ll talk more about later in this piece).

Texas wound up losing the turnover battle in this game by a margin of 2-0. And both these turnovers wound up being very costly when it was all said and done.

Junior quarterback Hudson Card threw a costly interception in the first half of this game. That was the first pick that Card tossed so far this season.

But the costliest turnover in this game for Texas came when Bijan fumbled the ball away on the first play of overtime for the Longhorns. That was the real straw in the camel’s back that essentially gave the game right to the Red Raiders.

According to Football Outsiders, Texas came into this game ranked 97th in the FBS in terms of defensive turnover rate. Texas was forcing turnovers on just 6.7 percent of the offensive drives they faced this season. And that percentage is about to get a whole lot worse after this loss to Texas Tech.

Texas has to be able to force more turnovers and avoid the costly ones as they had late in this game if they want to find more success in the Big 12 moving forward this fall.