Texas Tech Defensive Grades: Week 5

Week 5 is in the books, with a disappointing loss to Baylor we look at how the Defense stacked up. After the performance we saw in the game, there is very few brights spots. The Defense did stop a few drives with 3 punts in the second half, but the score deficit and the offense not capitalizing, it was really too little too late to save this game. This game has showed how much work that still needs to be done for our Defense to keep them in the game. I think Baylor will be the toughest competition they face all season so getting past this loss and continuing to get better is key. No one expected this defense to turn it completely around after years of lackluster performances, and there is a ton of room for improvement. Maybe this loss can help further that improvement by seeing just how many mistakes were made against a top 5 offense. Let's take a look at this weeks grades.

Overall Grade: F

This grade is not an indictment of of the season but it is fitting for the overall performance of this week. There were missed gaps, tackles and opportunities. This week they played one of the top ranked offenses in the nation and they could just not slow them down. As good as Baylor is they had several missed opportunities. Moving forward the fundamentals still need work and I hope they use this loss and grow from it instead of letting it define them. Only time will tell. Now to the individual groups grades.

DL Grade: F

There were some plays this group did well either getting pressure on the QB, stopping or slowing the run at the line. Unfortunately that was not the majority of the plays.

LB Grade: D-

This group had their fair share of missed opportunities. I think out of all three groups this one had a better performance than the others but only slightly. Like last week Dakota Allen stepped up and was all over the place trying to make plays, but Baylor was just too much for this group to handle.

DB Grade: F

Again this group just could not stop the pass. Either they were getting picked apart in the zone or being left behind by the receivers on the deep ball. They have got to work on coverage to be able to compete in the Big 12 with all the spread offenses. The good news is this group has time to get things right and maybe these last two losses will help them to grow and get better as this is still a pretty young secondary.

Now to name a defensive MVP, with a showing like yesterdays game I'm inclined to not name a MVP as the defensive product on the field was subpar, but this player in the last two losses has kept their individual effort up and I think deserves some recognition.

Defensive MVP: Dakota Allen