Texas Tech gets Arizona State in Lubbock on Saturday, and the Red Raiders are carrying the kind of numbers that usually make a favorite feel awfully comfortable.
That doesn’t mean anyone in the building is treating it like a grudge match, though. Tight end Terrance Carter Jr. made that clear Tuesday when he brushed aside the idea that the Sun Devils have been circled on the calendar.
"I wouldn't say [it's] a game circled," tight end Terrance Carter Jr. said Tuesday. "If it's circled, it's just because it is the next opponent we have.
They're a really good team, and we know what we have to do. We have to go out there and execute plays the way that we know how and honest, just get this team rolling."
Still, the matchup has some built-in history. Texas Tech beat Arizona State 30-22 in Lubbock last season, then dropped a 26-22 decision in Tempe later in the year.
That second meeting came with Will Hammond starting at quarterback for the Red Raiders in place of the injured Behren Morton. Tech spent most of that game chasing, then took a 22-19 lead with two minutes left after Hammond found his rhythm in the fourth quarter.
Arizona State answered late, and the Tech defense couldn’t keep the Sun Devils out of the end zone.
The bigger picture this time around looks far different. ESPN’s Matchup Predictor gives Texas Tech a 94.1% chance to win, and a big reason for that is Arizona State’s uneven resume against Power-4 competition.
The Sun Devils are 3-2, but their best win is a 24-17 victory over Kansas in London, England. Against the other two Power-4 teams on the schedule, the results haven’t been close. Texas A&M beat Arizona State 48-20 in College Station in Week 2, and Baylor rolled to a 55-19 win in Tempe two weekends ago.
That gap shows up first in the turnover battle, where Arizona State has been living dangerously. The Sun Devils rank 109th nationally in turnover margin, giving the ball away 0.60 more times per game than they take it back. They’ve already lost five fumbles and thrown three interceptions.
The pattern has been pretty simple: when Arizona State protects the football, it usually gives itself a chance. In its three wins, the team has turned it over just once. In the losses, the mistakes piled up fast - four turnovers against Texas A&M and three more against Baylor.
Texas Tech, meanwhile, has started creating its own havoc. The Red Raiders have forced seven takeaways over their last two games. If that trend keeps rolling and Arizona State keeps coughing it up, Saturday could tilt hard in Tech’s favor.
There’s also a stylistic problem for the Sun Devils on defense. Texas Tech has had stretches this season where it’s wound up behind the chains because of negative plays, and that showed up two weeks ago against Colorado when the Red Raiders finished just 3 of 12 on third down. Arizona State doesn’t look built to exploit that weakness.
The Sun Devils rank No. 104 nationally in tackles for loss and are last in the Big 12 at 4.4 per game. That’s a major drop from last year, when they were 17th in the country at 6.6 TFLs a contest. The lack of disruption has helped explain why they’re allowing the second-most points per game in the conference.
If Arizona State can’t get Tech into obvious passing situations early, it may have a hard time slowing the Red Raiders at all.
Then there’s the other side of the third-down equation, where Arizona State has been one of the least efficient teams in the country. The Sun Devils are converting just 29.7% of their third-down tries, which ranks 128th nationally and last in the Big 12.
That should at least give Texas Tech some hope, even with the Red Raiders’ own defensive third-down numbers sitting at No. 89 nationally. Tech has been better lately, though, holding Sam Houston to five conversions on 16 attempts and Colorado to six conversions on 16 tries.
Arizona State’s third-down issues have been especially pronounced in its losses. In those two games, the Sun Devils have gone just 7 for 27, a 25.9% clip.
So the formula is fairly plain: if Texas Tech takes care of the football, wins the trenches enough to avoid long-yardage messes, and keeps Arizona State off schedule on third down, the Red Raiders should be in position to back up those lopsided odds.
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