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SHREVEPORT, La. — Texas Tech football running back Tahj Brooks and his California counterpart Jaydn Ott, two of the FBS’s top seven rushers, were billed as the reason to tune in to an Independence Bowl matchup of 6-6 teams.
The Red Raiders made sure one of the two gave nowhere near his usual performance.
A swarming Tech defense limited Ott to 42 yards, his second-lowest rushing output of the season, showing the way for the Red Raiders in a 34-14 victory on Saturday’s opening night of bowl season. The Red Raiders let Ott loose for a 26-yard run and a 1-yard touchdown in the first quarter and then shut him down the rest of the night, the key to the program’s third consecutive bowl victory.
Joey McGuire called it “probably the best, most complete game we’ve played all year.”
“He had a couple of runs to our boundary that we didn’t set the edge,” the Tech coach said. “But other than that, I thought defensively stopping the run, man, was elite tonight against the best back in the Pac-12 and one of the best backs in the country.”
Texas Tech linebacker Jacob Rodriguez (10) raises his trophy as the outstanding defensive player in the Independence Bowl on Saturday night in Shreveport, Louisiana. Tech beat California 34-14, and Rodriguez was credited with six tackles, an interception, a caused fumble and a pass breakup.
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Ott came in with 1,260 yards rushing, at least 150 in five games and he’d returned a kickoff for a touchdown in Cal’s regular-season finale, a 33-7 conquest of UCLA.
Bottling up Ott was only part of the story. Among the Red Raiders’ 13 tackles for loss were six sacks. Defensive end Amier Washington, a true freshman from Little Cypress-Mauriceville, had four of the…
Source link : https://sports.yahoo.com/defense-rules-texas-tech-footballs-084117919.html
Author : Lubbock Avalanche-Journal
Publish date : 2023-12-17 08:41:17
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