Texas Tech Football Captain Responds to ‘Embarrassing’ Loss to Oklahoma
Travis Bruffy has started a lot of games for the Texas Tech football team. He's been a part of a few great wins, and a few terrible losses. As far as terrible losses in Texas Tech's recent history of losses, the Norman, Oklahoma loss to a Heisman contender-led Sooners powerhouse shouldn't have been taken so poorly.
The Texas Tech fanbase that's visible on social media did not take the loss well.
It wasn't so much the final score; 55-16 against a College Football Playoff team isn't anything to be ashamed about. It was the apathy with which the Red Raiders started the game that shook the Red Raider faithful and struck a chord.
New head coach Matt Wells responded to the game on Monday, but coaches can say anything. They're supposed to. It's called coach-speak for a reason. Will the response land better from a player? A player that is as important as senior captain and left tackle Travis Bruffy?
KAMC news' Eric Kelly put up a snippet of Bruffy's response to the Oklahoma game:
Bruffy did not mince words when asked about the loss to Oklahoma, shouldering the blame for the team's flat start.
"You have to come ready to play, myself included, we got caught slipping. I take full responsibility for not having everyone ready," Bruffy said, adding: "We need to have the juice going, and just I don't think we had that on Saturday and I think that's on me and the leadership."
It wasn't enough that Bruffy thought that the Red Raiders underperformed; he took the performance personally. "I felt like we embarrassed the Double-T, embarrassed the University," he said. "Honestly, people were ashamed that that's what we put out there. We feel like we just quit on ourselves."
Is Texas Tech going to lay down and roll over for the rest of the teams on the 2019 schedule? Not if Bruffy has anything to do with it.
"It's a new week, we have a lot to prove, we have nothing to lose. Everyone expects nothing from us now. so let's get that swagger back, let's get that energy back." Bruffy said. "I'm the softest left tackle in the Big 12 right now if you're watching last week's performance. If that's what they're expecting, I can't wait till Saturday to show them what we actually are."
These are great things to hear from a senior leader. They will be even better to see on Saturday when Texas Tech defends The Jones against Oklahoma State University.