Texas Tech football: Goals for this year’s defensive to strive for

Below 60% TD rate in the red zone

Patterson is right when he says that the red zone is one of, if not the key to playing defense in the Big 12.  That’s the area of the field where the defense should have a bit of an advantage given that there’s less of the field to cover.  And often, holding opponents to three points, rather than seven, is the difference in victory or defeat.

For example, we have to look no further back than last year’s Baylor game when Colin Schooler made his bone-jarring hit on BU quarterback Charlie Brewer at the goal line.  That play looked like it was going to be a walk-in TD for Brewer but Schooler’s heroics forced the Bears to have to kick a field goal.  That proved to be the pivotal moment in what would be a 24-23 last-second Red Raider win.

But coming up big inside the 20 was not something that last year’s defense did often enough.  In fact, Tech allowed opponents to score TDs on 32 of 49 red-zone possessions.  That’s a success rate of 65.3% and that isn’t good enough.

For comparison’s sake, Texas also faced 49 red zone drives from the opposition.  But they yielded TDs on only 26 TDs, which comes out to 53%.

This season, it would be fantastic for Tech to improve by about 5% in this regard.  In fact, holding opponents to just a 60% TD rate in the red zone may be the difference in a successful season or a disappointing one given how prevalent one-score games have been for this program.

In the Matt Wells era alone, Tech has played in eight one-score games.  That’s 36.3% of the games he has coached as a Red Raider.  And of course, in such contests, every point is critical.  So finding a way to keep the offense out of the endzone on a few more possessions this year could make all the difference in the world.