Texas Tech football: New DC Keith Patterson has troubling track record

The Texas Tech football team’s new defensive coordinator Keith Patterson’s track record, especially at Power 5 conference schools, is not appreciably better than what we have seen from the Texas Tech defense in recent seasons.

The quest to field a quality defense in Lubbock has proven to be one of the most challenging undertakings in college football. Now, Keith Patterson is the man who will take a shot at finally helping the Texas Tech football program fix the defensive woes that have plagued it for the better part of two decades. The only problem is that his track record as a defensive coordinator does not inspire much confidence.

Prior to his lone season at Utah State in 2018, Patterson spent six of the previous seven seasons as a defensive coordinator at three different Power 5 schools; Pitt, West Virginia and Arizona State. In those seven seasons, Patterson’s defenses were ranked on average No. 95.9 in the nation in total defense and 89.8 in scoring defense. They allowed 445.3 yards per game and 32.2 points per game during that time.

Compare that to the Red Raiders which during that same time ranked on average 103rd in total defense and 110th in scoring defense and it is hard to see much difference. The Red Raiders allowed 475.7 yards per game and 37.4 points per game from 2011-2017, just thirty yards and five points more per contest than the defenses Patterson oversaw.

Patterson’s best season was 2011 at Pitt where the Panther defense was 35th overall in total defense and 38th in scoring defense. That year, Pitt gave up 350.6 yards and 22.8 points per game in the Big East.

While those numbers are impressive, we must keep in mind that the Big East was on its last legs as a football conference at that time and featured sub par competition. In 2011, only two Big East teams finished the season in the Top 25 and only four ended the year with a winning record.

He would then head to Morgantown to lead the West Virginia defense in 2012-13. In 2012, the WVU defense ranked 112th in total defense and 117th in scoring defense. The next season, it ranked 102nd in total defense and 99th in scoring.

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During those two seasons, WVU gave up an average of 463.5 yards and 35.7 points per game. In 2012, Patterson’s defense gave up 49 points to the Red Raiders as No. 5 WVU was blown out in Lubbock. The next season, Tech hung 37 on the Mountaineers in a win in Morgantown.

Patterson’s next stop was in Tempe where he led the Arizona State defense from 2014-2016 before being demoted to linebackers coach in 2017 as former Baylor DC Phil Bennett was hired as defensive coordinator. Life in the Pac 12 proved even more difficult for Patterson with is defenses ranking 105th in total defense and 93rd in scoring defense on average.

And remember the two-year span from 2015-2016 in which the Red Raider defense finished the year second-to-last and last in total defense respectively? Life was not much better for Patterson at that time. In 2015, Arizona State ranked 113th and in 2016 it ranked 127th overall, just one spot ahead of the Red Raiders and second-to-worst in the country.

Red Raider fans got an opportunity to see Patterson’s work with the Sun Devils twice. In a 68-55 ASU win in 2016, Texas Tech racked up 612 yards of total offense. The next year, with Bennett as DC and Patterson coaching the linebackers, Tech rolled to 615 yards in a 52-45 win in Lubbock.

New head coach Matt Wells is brining with him the vast majority of his coaching staff from Utah State, especially on the offensive side of the football. It was no surprise to find out that both of his coordinators would be coming to Lubbock, a fact that was touted as a positive by AD Kirby Hocutt.

But while virtually everyone can see the logic of bringing aboard offensive coordinator David Yost, it is difficult to understand why Patterson is the man being tasked with doing something that is the Big 12 equivalency of chasing the great white whale; building a defense at Texas Tech. The recently completed 2018 regular season was Patterson’s best since 2011 as Utah State finished 57th in total defense and 38th in scoring defense allowing just 23 points per game.

But just as many Texas Tech fans are still skeptical of Matt Wells, who’s 10-2 run this year is not terribly inspiring being as it was preceded by three losing seasons, it is hard for the fan base to look at what Keith Patterson has done overall as a defensive coordinator and be convinced that he will be able to produce any better results than David Gibbs who was not good enough to fix the defensive woes on the South Plains.

During his lone season working on Wells’ staff in Logan, Patterson obviously impressed his head coach. And having the majority of his staff be familiar with his schemes and his plan for the program should only help the new Red Raider boss have a more seamless transition in Lubbock.

Plus, Wells has said that he believes Patterson’s ties to the Dallas area will help him on the recruiting trail. Patterson worked on the coaching staff at Allen High School, the top program in the state, in 1995-96, 2000 and 2002.

It can be argued that Kliff Kingsbury’s greatest mistake was hiring former Texas A&M linebackers coach Matt Wallersteadt to be his defensive coordinator in 2013. When he was fired in the middle of the 2014 season for off-field concerns, it sent the program into a nose dive on that side of the ball that we have yet to fully climb out of.

There’s no reason to believe that Patterson will flame out in such a personal way but there is also no reason to believe that he is the defensive coordinator that will finally fix Texas Tech’s defensive woes because his track record shows no indication of being able to build a competent defense in conferences built around offense. Patterson inherits a defense losing its top two players in Dakota Allen and Jah’Shawn Johnson and its top two pass rushers in Tony Jones and Kolin Hill making his job even more difficult.

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Here’s hoping that this is finally the defensive coordinator that can bring representative defense back to Texas Tech. But after looking at his track record, you must forgive Red Raider fans if we are less than optimistic.

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