Neal Brown is familiar with Texas Tech in more ways than one.
Brown — the former offensive coordinator for the Red Raiders — has yet to beat them as the head coach of West Virginia. Brown is 0-4, including a 48-10 drubbing on the road in Lubbock last season.
“Texas Tech, they’ve had our number and I think that’ll probably be the story this week. It is what it is, can’t hide from it,” Brown said. “They beat us four years in a row and last year was as probably as bad a performance as I’ve ever been apart of down in Lubbock.”
Texas Tech had 594 total yards of offense in that game last season, while running a total of 103 plays.
“They’ve beaten us handily twice,” Brown said. “I think the common theme is they’ve moved the ball on us pretty well and then we haven’t ran the ball as well as we need to be able to run the football to win football games versus those guys. Their tempo’s been an issue. We spent a lot of time in the offseason on these guys so hopefully it will show up.”
One of the keys to Texas Tech offensively is running back Tajh Brooks. Brooks ran for 107 yards and two touchdowns last season against the Mountaineers, and is averaging 7.4 yards per carry through Tech’s first three games this season.
“The running back’s special. They’re going to try and get him touches. He’s probably the best player in our league that nobody talks about,” Brown said. “We’ve played kind of the who’s who of running backs over the last three or four years… we’ve played elite running backs… Our guys are going to be ready but Tajh Brooks, I think he’s a special player.”
As far as the quarterback is concerned, he is a guy who poses true dual-threat ability. Tyler Shough is 9-3 as a starter for the Red Raiders, but has thrown four interceptions in Tech’s two losses this season, including three against Oregon, in their 38-30 home loss.
“The quarterback’s playing his best football of his career that I’ve seen and they play really fast. We better be ready for it,” Brown said. “We didn’t handle that very well last year and so that’s something that we spent a lot of time working on and it’s our first opportunity versus a team that’s going to tempo to see if we’ve got that issue fixed.”
Shough has a slew of receivers he can get the ball to. Brown feels that group is one of the best in the Big 12 Conference.
“Offensively they’ve got great skill players. If you look at it, three or four receivers that can play for anybody in our league,” Brown said. “They’ve probably got the best group of receivers in our league.”
Texas Tech ranks last in the Big 12 in time of possession this season but they are still scoring just under 35 points per game through three games in 2023.
Texas Tech opened the season with a double-overtime loss on the road to Wyoming, backing that up with the home loss to Oregon. They got back on track a week ago when they beat Tarleton State 41-3.
Texas Tech’s defense has struggled at times this year, ranking second-to-last in the Big 12 in scoring defense and total defense. They also are 11th in the conference in rush defense.
WVU’s offense is still unsure of who will start at quarterback, with Garrett Greene being called a game-time decision by Brown on Thursday.
With Greene or Nicco Marchiol comes the threat of the quarterback run for WVU, as well as their strong ground game which is averaging 200 rush yards per game this season.
Kickoff is set for 3:30 p.m. from Milan Puskar Stadium in Morgantown, with the game being televised on ESPN+.
