Believe it or not, there was once a time when Texas Tech football was synonymous with playing defense and running the football. However, a quarter of a century after Mike Leach brought the "Air Raid" offense to the South Plains, an entire generation of Red Raider fans has grown up knowing almost nothing but despair and agony on the defensive side of the ball.
That continued this year when the Red Raiders ranked 123rd nationally in total defense and 132nd in passing defense. It was certainly a regression for the Red Raiders but not a surprise given Tech's defensive woes over the last two decades plus of football.
Now, the program has turned to a new defensive coordinator, Shiel Wood, to try to fix that side of the ball. What's more, head coach Joey McGuire is counting on Wood to pull off a feat that he's become known for, turning around a program's defense in one season.
That's something Wood managed to do in 2024 at Houston. In fact, what he managed to do in his only season with the Cougars was more than remarkable.
In 2023, the Houston defense finished the year ranked 112th in total defense by giving up 423.9 yards per game. What's more, the Cougars were 114th in passing yards allowed, 98th in rushing yards allowed, and 105th in scoring defense.
Thus, when Wood arrived as part of the coaching staff put together by new head coach Willie Fritz prior to the 2024 season, he had his work cut out for him. However, that didn't keep Wood from pulling off one of the top turnarounds in college football.
This season, Houston ended the regular season ranked No. 26 in total defense by giving up 324.8 yards per game. Additionally, the Cougars were No. 29 nationally against the pass and No. 43 against the run. Meanwhile, Houston allowed only 22.9 points per game, 48th-best in the country.
2024 wasn't a fluke on Wood's part, either. Though the drastic turnaround he made at Houston is unlike anything he's ever pulled off, he does have a history of improving defenses in his first year with a program.
In 2023, as defensive coordinator at Tulane (also coaching under Fritz that season), he improved the Green Wave's total defense numbers from No. 46 in America in 2022 to No. 36 in 2021. Prior to that, he saw the Troy defense jump from No. 24 nationally in total defense the year before he arrived (2021) to No. 19 in his first (and only) season with the Trojans (2022).
Even in Wood's first run as a collegiate defensive coordinator, 2020, he helped the Army defense take a massive jump forward. In 2019, Army ranked No. 30 in the FBS in total defense but in Wood's first year as co-defensive coordinator, Army ranked No. 1 in the country in that category.
Texas Tech isn't asking for Wood to be a miracle worker in 2025. Given the talent that the Red Raiders are expected to field on offense next season, the program can be successful with just an average defense. In fact, if Tech's defense would have been merely middle of the road in the Big 12 this year, Tech likely would have competed for the conference title given that the Red Raider offense was the highest-scoring offense in the league.
But if Wood wants to perform the same type of miracle in Lubbock next season that he did in Houston this fall, no one on the South Plains is going to stop him. That's because this program is desperate for even a representative defense, something that has been as rare in West Texas since the turn of the century as a Bigfoot sighting.