What to expect from a Keith Patterson defense

Look, the hire has not made basically anyone happy. I wanted Neal Brown or Seth Littrell, and I think more of the fans wanted a serious run made for Holgerson.

But it is a done deal, so instead of being negative let’s look to the future. If Keith Patterson can replicate the success of the Aggie defense here in Lubbock, this could really be a start of something exciting.

Keith Patterson will lead the next 806D, now what can we expect?

Texas Tech moves to the cloud

Patterson might redesign his defense, but at Utah State he ran the 3-3-5. This is going to look a lot like the cloud scheme employed by Matt Cambell at Iowa State. The system proved to be pretty effective. Utah State ranked 57th in total defense.

They gave up an average of 385 yards per game. This combined with what will likely be another hire powered under David Yost is my favorite part of the hire. Patterson has not had to employee this scheme against the incredible Big 12 offenses, but Iowa State proved this can work to slow down even the best offenses.

The turnover machine keeps rolling

We have all come to expect the 806D to force a lot of turnovers. It looks like we can expect more of that aggressive play, as Utah State ranked third in turnovers gained. Combine that with the twenty-eighth ranked third-down defense, and Patterson has a track record of getting his defense off the field.

How excited should Red Raider’s be for the new defense?

I am not a fan of hiring Matt Wells, but really I did get excited when I saw his coordinators were following him. What doomed Kingsbury for so long was not having a stable and good defensive coordinator, Wells won’t have that problem.

We are losing a couple big pieces from our defense, but there is still more talent that we are all used to on that side of the ball. The 3-3-5 cloud scheme has choked our offense for three straight years now, so it will be fun to throw that back at the other high-powered offenses.

In total, maybe Wells is not your favorite guy. But this is one of the best defensive coordinator hires any coach could have made, and I think the defense will be even better than it was under Gibbs. As much as bend but don’t break improved our defense, I think Patterson will instead just get us off the field consistently.