Texas Tech Survives Three Picks and Wins 49-14
Will Hammond threw three interceptions and his team still won by 35. That is the kind of afternoon Texas Tech had against Sam Houston, and it is not a sentence you get to write very often.
The Red Raiders went up 7-0 on a one-yard Cameron Dickey run at 5:11 of the first quarter. Then came the seven seconds that decided the game. Austin Romaine returned an interception 15 yards for a touchdown at 14:54 of the second, and at 14:47 he returned another one 31 yards for a second. Just like that it was 21-0.
Sam Houston did get something going. Landyn Locke hit Tim Burns Jr. for a 52-yard touchdown at 8:17, and Chris Reed caught a nine-yard score with 1:56 left in the half to make it 21-14, a one-score game at the break. Texas Tech then outscored the Bearkats 28-0. Dickey scored again from 13 yards at 13:42 of the third, Hammond found Coy Eakin from 21 yards at 10:33, Hammond ran 23 yards for a score at 10:41 of the fourth, and Thomas Castellanos threw a 27-yard touchdown to Malcolm Simmons at 4:49 to make it 49-14.
The yardage was lopsided without being absurd: Texas Tech 470, Sam Houston 269. Texas Tech ran 35 times for 219 yards, and its defense had two sacks. Each team threw three interceptions and Texas Tech lost a fumble, so the turnover count by itself was not the reason for the margin. The two interceptions that went for touchdowns were.
Texas Tech is 4-0 and Sam Houston falls to 1-3. For fantasy, the big prizes were Dickey, who led everyone with two rushing touchdowns, and Hammond, who put up 24.6 points despite the picks because he ran one in too.