Texas Tech Defensive Grades: Week 8

In the first half we had some bright spots out of the secondary as Oklahoma's run game was taking off. The second half though, that's when things began to really get out of hand. Tech's defense has a big reputation for a terrible run defense. I won't go into the gory stats, but as many have seen it doesn't get much worse. Until the Defense can stop the run consistently we will have that reputation and teams will bend the defense to their will. Until the Defense has time to build and learn under a consistent program they will never get better.

Even with a huge loss, there is some bright spots in this program. Although Saturday showed just how far they have to go. I did see some bright spots at all 3 position groups, some more than others, but there wasn't much consistency in either half. In the first half a few bigs plays were made, but the run game of Oklahoma was just starting in on wearing out the Defense.

Overall Grade: D-

Some people will think this is high, but the effort and big plays of a few just edge over the F grade overall. The DB's are the reason for this. Out of all 3 groups they had the best performance even though there was only a third of the attempts in the air compared to OU's run game.

DL Line: F

Pete Robertson had some nice plays during the game. The rest of this group was pretty quiet and there was few stops at the line, or for short yardage when they needed it the most.

LB Grade: D-

This group also had some nice plays and made some good tackles at times. It just couldn't stop enough of the run to make a difference. Much like the DL this group couldn't make the stops consistently enough against the tag team that was OU's running game. Even with a tough loss Awe and Allen still had some good production. It just wasn't at the right times.

DB Grade: C

This group did the best out of the 3. They caused turnovers and kept up with good coverage at times, which the coverage game has been lacking. Nigel Bethel II had a good game with some nice coverage. The rest of the group gave some great effort and had to pull double duty at times when the run got passed the second level. As bad as this game was I think this group made some improvements which is promising with such a young group.

Even though he didn't get any turnovers I think the best individual performance goes to.

Defensive MVP: Nigel Bethel II