I don’t think there are many truly reasonable Texas Tech football fans who will actually, legitimately complain about how the defense looked when the Red Raiders faced off against the Arkansas-Pine Bluff Golden Lions. That season-opening win was fantastic to watch and the defense was a huge reason that it was so dang lopsided.
Yes, we can talk about Mack Leftwich' s offense all day long, and I think there’s a place for discussing the tempo they operated at and how quickly and effectively the Red Raider offense was at moving up and down the field.
But the defense. Let’s focus on the way Shiel Wood’s defense completely and totally shut down the Golden Lions offense all throughout the game. Arkansas-Pine Bluff only managed to get a grand total of 175 yards of total offense in this game. The Red Raiders limited the Golden Lions to 52 yards in the first half.
This was an impressive showing from a Texas Tech defense that has not been great in years past. It’s not like Texas Tech is known for great defense.
Texas Tech defensive lineman Skyler Gill-Howard seemed impressed by 3rd down efficiency
“I feel like we’re really efficient on third down, keeping them off schedule,” Gill-Howard said.
For full context, Arkansas-Pine Bluff was awful at converting on third down against Texas Tech. The Golden Lions offense converted just four of 14 third down attempts. The average third down distance was 7.3 yards.
“Obviously there are some things we have to clean up, it doesn’t matter who’s in there, but I’d say we were pretty efficient getting them off schedule and getting off the field on third down,” Gill-Howard continued.
I agree! Fully agree. 100 percent agree. The defense on third down was spectacular for the Red Raiders in this one.
“We need to just keep communicating like we do and keep playing together and trusting each other,” Gill-Howard said. “If we do those things, we will be alright.”