Texas Tech football: 5 areas where Red Raiders must be better in 2021

3rd down defense

Though the 2020 defense was improved for DC Keith Patterson, it wasn’t without its faults.  One area in which that side of the ball struggled at times was when it came to third down.

Allowing opponents to convert on 41.4% of 3rd down attempts, Tech was 9th in the Big 12 and just 76th nationally in that stat.  That needs to change this year.

In all but one of 2020’s losses, Tech’s opponent converted on at least 40% of its third-down opportunities.  That included three times when an opponent was successful at least 50% of the time.

But this year’s defense is expected to be better with all but three starters returning and a bevy of experienced Power 5 transfers set to reinforce Keith Patterson’s unit.  Thus, we should enter 2021 expecting the Red Raiders to be better when it comes to getting off the field.

If that proves to be the case, it will be a refreshing turn of events.  That’s because the Red Raiders have been one of the worst teams in the nation on third down for far too long.

In 2019, Tech was just 103rd nationally in that stat by allowing a 44.5% success rate.  The year prior, Tech was 76th in the country by giving up a rate of 40.2%.  What’s more, to find a year in which Tech allowed less than 40% on third down, you would have to go back to 2013, the first year of the Kliff Kingsbury era, when Tech gave up a 34.9% success rate.

That should be Tech’s goal this year, to be under 40% on third down.  Doing so would have ranked 57th nationally and that’s not all that huge of a jump from No. 76 where Tech was last fall.

It’s time for this veteran defense to finally take real steps forward across the board and be one of the better units in the Big 12.  Tech has invested heavily into beefing up that side of the ball through the transfer portal and now the excuses of a lack of depth or a lack of Big 12 caliber players no longer hold water.  So let’s see if Patterson’s unit can answer the bell and figure out how to get off the field on the game’s most important down.