The Texas Tech Red Raiders are going to debut a brand new defense when the Arkansas-Pine Bluff Golden Lions come to Lubbock and it’s going to be absolutely fascinating to see Shiel Wood (Texas Tech’s new defensive coordinator) work to improve a defense that has a history of being the opposite of good.
Truly, it will be fun. Because I think we’re going to see some improvement from the Red Raiders on the defensive side of the ball and also because I think we’re going to see a defense that is coached by a guy who is so incredibly fun to listen to as he breaks down what offenses do.
I, for one, could go for a longform offseason series that involves just watching Wood break down what other teams do. We can do teams that Texas Tech will never play for all I care.
Because the way he broke down what the Arkansas-Pine Bluff Golden Lions will likely do on offense was fun to listen to.
Texas Tech defensive coordinator Shiel Wood explains what Red Raider fans should be able to see from Arkansas-Pine Bluff’s offense
During a press conference, Wood noted that the Golden Lions could be an intriguing team to watch. Their offense might be moving around a bit and trying to cause a bit of confusion.
"I think they’re going to be a team that’s going to be kind of a spread team,” Wood said. “A lot of 11 personnel, so one back, one tight end in the game.”
That’s not uncommon with a lot of offenses in this day and age. Flexibility and versatility and a lot of wide receivers on the field. But as for what specific types of plays the Golden Lions might run when they face the Red Raiders?
“They’re going to run a lot of inside zone, they’ll mix that run game up with a little bit of wide zone, maybe a little bit of gap scheme,” Wood explained. “A lot of RPOs off of their run game, they’ll try to tempo you at times after a made first down, maybe in a second down situation as well.”
I really, really want to sit down and have Wood explain all of this to me in person while breaking down film as we go. It’d be a ton of fun to just learn all of this from him. It really seems like he’s been paying pretty close attention to what Arkansas-Pine Bluff has been doing and I really would like to pick his brain about the various teams in the Big 12 on Texas Tech’s schedule.
“They’ll give you some oversplits, they’ll give you some normal splits,” Wood said. “They’ll give you some condensed splits. They’ll try to create some bootlegs that give you some run-pass conflict, unbalanced formations.”
Honestly, from an offensive perspective, it sounds like Arkansas-Pine Bluff would be a fun FCS team to keep up with this season if they’re able to execute all of that relatively well on a fairly regular basis. We’ll see just how well they can do all of that against Texas Tech this weekend.