Shreveport LA – With the Independence Bowl marking the end of the season for both teams, the Texas Tech Raiders took home the victory against the California Golden Bears, with the final score of 34-14. Their sophomore quarterback, Brehren Morton, led the way with an astonishing 256 passing yards and 3 touchdowns.
With all of his yardage into play, that did not stop the Golden Bears from getting off to a hot start. Texas Tech received the opening kickoff, which ended up a fumble with the Bears coming out with the ball. Shortly after, the Bears scored on their first play from scrimmage, making the lead 7-0 just 15 seconds into the game.
Two drives later, the Raiders tied it back up to 7-7 with a 27-yard touchdown pass from QB Brehren Morton to Coy Eakin. The teams went back and forth with both defenses, giving up a touchdown tying the score 14-14 with 12:16 left in the 1st half. After a couple of defensive stops, the Red Raiders were able to take the lead with a touchdown & field goal, making the final score 24-14 going into the half.
The Red Raiders played a great second quarter, and their head coach Joey Maguire would agree. “Yeah, I would think so. You know, Behren [Morton] can probably tell you the most, but it’s probably the healthiest he’s been since the West Virginia game. You know, during that week and I think you saw that with the zip on the ball, the touchdown to Loic Fouonji was actually, I mean, it was a laser, and that shows you that he’s getting healthy.”
Behren’s health had no effect on him in the second half as Texas Tech scored 10 more unanswered points with a 7 yard rushing touchdown from Tahj Brooks and a 37 yard field goal from Gino Garcia. The Raiders’ defense was led by the defensive MVP of the game Jacob Rodriguez shutting down the Bears, preventing them from putting any points on the board and forcing 4 fatal turnovers in the second half.
Coach Joey chimed in by saying “We talked about complimentary football and we talked
about that you know, if something crazy is going on one side of the ball then the other side of the ball is going to pick, pick it up and offense did tonight and it kind of got out of whack early on defense and so the offense had to pick us up and let us settle in and play and they really did.”
Quarterback Brehren Morton talks about winning offensive MVP and his teams sensation of winning another bowl game. “It feels really good to win another bowl game. You know, I’ve been to a bowl every year I’ve been in college, you know, but you know what we have going on right now, this university is really special. “
On the other side, the Bears head coach Justin Wilcox was left with what could have been while finding solace in what they need to work on in the upcoming season. Wilcox stated “We need to take another step there. When we come back, it needs to be more competitive than it’s ever been because where we finished this year that’s not the goal. That’s not good enough. That’s why this offseason when these guys come back it’s going to be a heightened intensity there. Everything has to be because how we finished was not good enough.”
This win makes it the 3rd consecutive bowl game in which Texas Tech Raiders has come out the victor.
