Riley: Bad routes led to drops

Texas Tech inside receivers coach Lincoln Riley said at least half the Red Raiders’ eight dropped passes against SMU resulted from bad technique on route-running.

Riley used a dropped pass by inside receiver Tramain Swindall to illustrate.

“He moved over just a shade to the inside when he shouldn’t have,” Riley said, “and if he wouldn’t have the ball would have been right here instead of being a tougher catch out here where he had to jump for it. Just that little precision, just those little things if we clean up, I think we have three or four less drops because of technique.”

Riley said the receivers didn’t do anything different than usual Tuesday in practice. Instead, the film room was more valuable, especially in showing some of the young receivers how to eliminate the drops.

“They get in a game sometimes and they want to play fast, they’re excited, and they lose that little bit of precision,” Riley said. “They understand that and they saw it on film. We made a big production of it. So they understand what they have to get better at and why that precision’s so important.

“It’s one thing to tell them, Hey, it’s so important to be precise on these routes,’ but when they see (on film), It causes me a drop,’ or It caused a ball to be tougher,’ or I lose yards going up the field,’ then (coaches) can say, Here’s why.’ I think it makes a bigger impact when you can show them that, especially in a game.”

Riley said running an imprecise route and not being able to snare a pass can have another unintended consequence: What looks like an off-target pass might not be.

“Sometimes it makes (quarterback) Graham (Harrell) look bad,” he said.

Best of special teams

Taylor Charbonnet has 24 points, Lance Fuller 23 and Daniel Charbonnet 18 to lead the “Top Gun” chart kept by Tech assistant Clay McGuire.

The Tech special teams coach awards points for longer-than-average returns, tackles on coverage teams and good blocks. Points are taken away for penalties and missed blocks.

“Coach (Mike) Leach does a great job of making special teams important,” McGuire said. “That’s just another way to kind of glorify playing special teams. Those guys see that chart and they’re competing with each other, especially guys who get to play on a lot of special teams. They compete and see who’s going to be the best guy of the week.”

Taylor Charbonnet had a team season-best 12 points against Eastern Washington, Fuller and Daniel Charbonnet led with eight apiece against Nevada and Fuller tallied 11 against SMU. Fuller’s 11 comprised three points each for two blocks and a solo tackle and one each for two assists.

Freshman Jared Flannel had nine points against SMU for three solo tackles on coverage teams.

Behind the top three on the season leader board are Jamar Wall with 11 points, Flannel and De’Shon Sanders with 10 and Victor Hunter with nine.

Injury update

Running back Aaron Crawford and linebacker Blake Collier remain hampered by injuries. Both were doing conditioning work at the end of practice Tuesday. They missed the SMU game.