Anomalies no more, defense gets pummeled by another in state rival

Folks, I wish I was writing today under better circumstances, but unfortunately, that is not the case.

The Texas Tech defense put up another horrible outing on Saturday against TCU, surrendering nearly 400 yards on the ground, to a team that had virtually zero passing game.

To beat TCU you have to stop them on the ground and force them to throw the ball down the field in order to have a chance. The Red Raiders though, did the polar opposite. They were putting only four or five guys in the box to stop the run and dropping six or sometimes even seven or eight in coverage, leaving the running backs from TCU basically untouched until they were seven or eight yards down the field.

What was even worse than the opening series and how Tech lined up, was that they refused to change. They watched the TCU backs gash the defense time and time again and did absolutely nothing about it.

Fast forward to the end of the game, 393 yards and 52 points later, the defense was absolutely embarrassed. This time however, it was at home in front of 60,454 fans for a homecoming blackout game.

This season the football team has failed to start well in five of six games, and this one was no different as TCU running back Zach Evans had 60 yards after the first three plays and oh by the way, the first play was a false start by the Horned Frogs.

I’ll give a cumulative grade this week:

DEFENSE: ABSENT

The Red Raider defense was MIA, nowhere to be found , and flat out unimpressive.

I can’t really blame this fully on the players, despite the loads of missed tackles. As a coach your job is to put your players in the best position to win the game. That was simply not done on Saturday. Players were lined up everywhere, except where they needed to be.

This defensive staff needs to take a long and hard look in the mirror and decide what happens from here on out. Kansas should be an easy win. After that though, you have Kansas State, OU, and Iowa State, which are primarily run first teams. Are we going to see this defense give up 400 yards a week on the ground for the rest of the year?

Can you as a defensive unit come up with a game plan that forces running teams to actually beat you over the top by passing?

Folks, I don’t know what to expect for the rest of the year, but I know we will have a lot clearer picture of the future of this program in about a month.

Stay tuned.