Stop blaming Texas Tech's penalties, Cincinnati won that game up front

Everybody's going to read the Texas Tech box score, see 13 penalties and three turnovers, and tell you the Red Raiders lost that game themselves. They'll be about half right. Cincinnati won it at the line of scrimmage, and you don't run for 255 yards on a top-10 team by waiting around for flags.

Cole Tabb carried 16 times for 173 yards. That's 10.8 a carry. I spent my whole career blocking for guys who got the headlines, so let me tell you what that number looks like from the inside. A back doesn't average almost 11 yards because he's fast. He averages 11 because somebody up front kept winning, play after play, and nobody had to touch him for the first few yards.

The play that ended it was the most offensive-line play of the afternoon. Stone Harrington had just kicked his fourth field goal to make it 31-18 with 7:42 left. Texas Tech needed one stop. On the next drive Tabb went 58 yards for a touchdown. A defense that needs a stop that badly with seven minutes left, and gives up a 58-yard run instead, has been losing up front for a while.

Now the fair part. Texas Tech's mistakes were real. The Red Raiders were flagged 13 times for 85 yards, lost fumbles by Coy Eakin and Will Hammond, threw a pick and went 3 for 15 on third down. That isn't a team playing anywhere near its best, and the AP pointed out it cost them a chance at their first 7-0 start since 2013.

But Cincinnati handed some back, too. JC French threw two interceptions, and Peyton Morgan took one 53 yards for a touchdown early in the third quarter to cut a 24-6 halftime lead to 24-15. That's the kind of play that gets a ranked team believing again. French answered it with a touchdown pass to Larenzo Fenner before the quarter was out. The Bearcats outgained Tech 427 to 400, which isn't a team riding its luck. It's a team that took a punch and kept doing the thing that was working.

I'll give French his due. Four touchdown passes, a career high, three of them in the second quarter. But play-action and short touchdown throws get a lot easier when the other side has to sell out against a back going 10 yards a pop. Tabb also caught one of those four.

The AP had this as Cincinnati's first home win over a top-10 team since it beat No. 7 Rutgers in November 2006. Fine, call it an upset in the standings. I'd just stop calling it a fluke. A fluke is a tipped pass and a fumble bounce. This was a team that kept running the ball at a top-10 defense until it broke, and if Texas Tech's coaches watch the film and only talk about penalties, they'll learn the wrong lesson.

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