Texas Tech Beats New Mexico to Wrap Up Non-Conference Play

Texas Tech Red Raider quarterback Seth Doege continued his stellar senior season Saturday night with a career-high 6 touchdown passes against the New Mexico Lobos. Texas Tech (3-0) beat New Mexico (1-2) 49-14 in front of 58,995, the fourth largest crowd in Jones AT&T Stadium history.

Doege got into a rhythm early against the Lobos, driving down the field for a touchdown on the first drive of the game. Doege's 20 yard touchdown pass to Eric Ward was the first of 3 touchdown passes to Ward during the game. Doege talked about finding Ward open for the scores, "It's just one of those things that the defense gave us, and they showed us some look that we could go in that direction.  He made a lot of plays.  He did a really good job of getting open and catching the ball.  Like I said, he made a lot of plays and I was excited for him."

Tech head coach Tommy Tuberville was again pleased with his team after the win, "A very good night.  There is not a lot you can't say about tonight other than we were a little sloppy in the kicking game, but we pretty much dominated on both sides of the ball on the offensive and defensive line.  One drive there we didn't tackle very well.  We didn't play fourth down very well, and we gave them that touchdown.  A little bit disappointed with that, but, again, it's a tremendous improvement in the first three games from what we saw last year."

Tuberville also said the offense is firing on all cylinders, "Offensively we pretty much could do what we wanted to, running the ball, running for over 300 yards and throwing it for 400 yards, that's a pretty good night.  Lot of good vibes out of a lot of guys.  We played almost everybody on the bench, which always helps."

Eric Ward caught 5 passes for 90 yards with the aforementioned 3 touchdown receptions. He was asked if he did anything special to get open, "I was just running my route.  Like Coach Brown (Neal Brown, offensive coordinator) tells us, just run your route as hard as you can and expect the ball.  I was doing what I was supposed to do."

Doege went 27/35 passing for 340 yards, 6 touchdowns and no interceptions. Michael Brewer relieved him in the middle of the third quarter. He went 6/10 passing for 37 yards.

Tight end Jace Amaro also had a great night; he hauled in 4 passes for 57 yards, two of them touchdown receptions.

Meanwhile, the Lobos were stymied offensively by the Red Raider "Chain Gang" defense. They only mustered 127 yards of offense on 25:43 time of possession. They were also held to 2/11 on 3rd down conversions. Neither team turned the ball over during the contest.

Texas Tech gets next week off, before starting Big 12 Conference play on September 29 at the Iowa State Cyclones.