Spring football roundups: Defending the plains

Texas Tech figured out the missing piece to making their Air Raid approach work out in West Texas.

Mike Leach (RIP) was once asked about why he didn’t run the ball like virtually all of his pupils and successors. The dread Pirate Mike (RIP) responded, “well they don’t win as much as I do either.”

It’s been true, with a few exceptions, but the reason for the dread Pirate Mike’s (RIP) longevity and success had less to do with offense and more to do with defense. His teams actually played defense, even though it wasn’t really their reputation, and a number of solid defensive coaches were propelled by working under him.

Texas Tech grew tired of Leach and forced him out but continued to run Air Raid schemes every single season after he left.

He was fired after 2009 and from there the Raiders looked like this:

The 2022 season was the first for new head coach Joey McGuire.

McGuire hired Zach Kittley from Western Kentucky as his offensive coordinator. Kittley was a student assistant at Texas Tech under Kliff Kingsbury (working with Sonny Cumbie) and came back after a few years as offensive coordinator for Houston Baptist and WKU. So yet another Air Raid tree guy runs the offense, although we’re getting further removed from the Dread Pirate Mike himself.

McGuire himself came up the ranks as a South Dallas high school coach with a focus on defense. Matt Rhule plucked him up to help him get to know the lay of the land in Texas recruiting and Dave Aranda retained him until he left for the Texas Tech job.

McGuire immediately had the best season of any Texas Tech coach since Leach himself. What stands out about his success? Perhaps Tech didn’t play great defense…but they gave up less than 30 per game for the first time since Leach left.

The first time.

That was just year one. In year two McGuire has Tech positioned as one of the two main favorites in the Big 12 conference.

McGuire’s program method

Despite moving on from Leach, Tech could never seem to move on from the Air Raid but it also never really seemed like they should. Most all of the West Texas high school programs are all in on the spread offense, to say nothing of the rest of the state from which the Raiders tend to recruit, and scoring points was never the problem in Lubbock.

When McGuire took over, he immediately hired one of the rising stars of the Air Raid tree as offensive coordinator to keep things up. However, McGuire himself is not of that ilk but has always been a defensive guy. He hired well-aged veteran defensive coordinator Tim Deruyter along with secondary coach Marcel Yates.

Deruyter was the defensive coordinator at Texas A&M for Mike Sherman and left to go West, serving as head coach at Fresno State, then defensive coordinator at Cal under Justin Wilcox where he learned the Aranda-school defense, finally he did a year at Oregon before leaving for this gig.

Yates used to work with him at Texas A&M, then went to Boise and Arizona before reuniting with Deruyter at Cal, Oregon, and finally Tech. He’s recruited the state of Texas for a long time.

They installed something hearkening back to the Justin Wilcox “Peso” defense, a 2-4-5 but with some flexibility to play more like a 3-3-5 with loads of single-high coverage. It’s fairly close to what Pete Kwiatkowski did at Washington before coming to Texas. Early on it was very effective with Tyree Wilson, who’s likely to be drafted soon, piling up 14 tackles for loss and seven sacks as the “Jack” (field side Edge).

Then Wilson was injured against Kansas late in the year. In the final three games without him…Tech went 3-0 with wins at Iowa State, vs Oklahoma at home, and then in the Texas Bowl against Ole Miss.

Previous head coach Matt Wells had some background in the Aranda-school of defense and he tried to rebuild the roster to be about defense, to McGuire’s benefit, but he was overmatched in the Big 12 and panic-fired his offensive coordinator after two seasons before quickly being fired during the third. Wells himself was actually a former offensive coach who got the Tech job thanks to the work of David Yost, the offensive coordinator he panic fired at Tech.

McGuire brought an actual know-how and intensity to coaching a program that would emphasize defense. You can see it in the Red Raider recruiting, their first class in 2023 included 26 total high school commits and 15 of them were on defense. In fact most of the highest rated players were all defenders.

Blue chips Jordan Sanford (91.11 DFW cornerback), Brenden Jordan (90.64 DFW safety), and Dylan Spencer (90.32 Houston D-lineman were the top three rated additions. They also added multiple defensive tackles, highlighted by Jayden Cofield (87.05 rated 6-foot-2, 335 pound nose from Austin).

It’s hard to build a defense without A) accumulating real athletes and B) actually putting a major program emphasis on the physicality and sacrifice it takes to play defense well.

Previous Air Raid coaches like Kingsbury didn’t do so, even as they built amazing offensive units from lower-ranked recruiting classes. McGuire’s plan is to upgrade the recruiting but largely for the sake of defense while continuing to use the Air Raid and in-state spread players to punch above their weight on offense.

Asymmetric warfare 2.0

In addition to doing traditional things to try and win games, like emphasizing defense, McGuire does some non-traditional things as well.

The Red Raiders lead the nation in 2022 in 4th down attempts with 52 and they converted 33 of them for a percentage of 63.5%. That’s why they beat Texas early in the year (a game in which they went 6-8 on 4th down) but it wasn’t a single-game strategy.

Their offense was heavy on shot passing, they were taking big swings whenever they could, and they fought to maintain possession with their approach to fourth downs. You can get away with taking shots down the field in the passing game if you routinely give yourself an extra down to make up for incompletions which create 2nd-and-10. If you go for it on 4th down and call 3rd down like you will, then 2nd-and-10 is basically 1st-and-10.

You lose some possessions but you also gain more opportunities to score.

A go-to for 4th down were variations of this quarterback power play we’ve talked about before:

https://twitter.com/Ian_A_Boyd/status/1574458136110448640?s=20

The offensive line blocks inside zone style but it’s a fake handoff with the running back becoming a lead blocker in the cutback lane opened up by tight ends blocking back. It’s often called zone-follow but it’s basically quarterback Duo (power) with misdirection in the backfield.

Tech had a little bit of trouble with quarterback health, rolling through three different guys at the position over the course of the season, but they really did damage with this. Those three quarterbacks combined for 464 rushing yards and 11 rushing touchdowns while trying places on the field.

Their defensive approach matched the overall philosophy.

We’ve seen up-tempo, offensively oriented teams that tried to play a style of defense to aid the offense before, even in Lubbock, but usually ineffectively.

The theory would be this, if you want to play an aggressive, up-tempo game then your opponent is liable to try and control the game with their own offense with ball-control. So how do you stop them from doing so?

Tech’s defense was not only fairly competent in 2022, but they had a philosophy which paired well with their offensive approach. They played a 2-4-5 lineup with a big nickel named Marquis Waters (6-1, 215 pounds) who gave their system amazing flexibility.

He could jam up a slot and play man coverage:

If you tried to play the slot in the boundary he’d stay aligned to the field and had the size and strength to handle himself on the edge (especially with a big Edge inside of him).

And he could always blitz off the edge while the safety behind him dropped down in man coverage.

They could vacillate between playing like a 3-4 team or a 2-4-5 without substituting because of Waters’ versatility and the use of big strong players at Jack Edge like Wilson (6-foot-6, 270 pounds) but also his replacement Joseph Adedire (6-foot-3, 270 pounds, playing the spot above vs OU).

Tech was very good at winning key downs on defense by moving Waters around and directly challenging whatever the opponent wanted to do. They could jam you up and dare you to throw over the top and could load numbers into the box to stop the run in key moments.

Waters had 60 tackles, 13 tackles for loss, and a sack.

It was hard to sit on the ball and control games because they were willing to take risks on defense with press coverage, loaded boxes, and nasty run blitzes. You might score quickly a few times (Oklahoma did) but then they’d have the ball back with a chance to either pile up points or hold it themselves with their 4th down aggression.

On both sides of the ball they’d apply pressure and encourage high possession, wild, wild west shootouts of the sort the Big 12 is known for. Once they had you in a brawl, it was hard to out-punch them as they were trained to fight in that fashion. The team didn’t even have consistent quarterback play or particularly great O-line play, which are normally hallmarks of a team who can win lots of close slugfests.

What they had was a lot of fight and a coaching staff that was willing to call games to win.

2023 prospective

All of this just leads us to spring football and the upcoming 2023 season. Texas Tech is a really interesting team this coming season.

First of all, they didn’t lose very much from the team with two notable exceptions. Jack Edge Tyree Wilson left for the draft, but they’re actually looking pretty solid behind him even if they don’t have another superstar of his quality. They’re also losing Marquis Waters, which is a tough loss, but they went to the portal for a 210 pound defensive back named C.J. Baskerville from San Diego State to replace him.

Neither of those are insignificant, but the amount of experience and talent which returns is eye-opening.

Three starters on the line return while a pair of transfers from Kittley’s Western Kentucky days join via transfer. Top three wideouts Myles Price, Jerand Bradley, and Loic Fouonji and are joined by FCS star Drae McCray from Austin Peay. The tight ends and running backs return and quarterbacks Tyler Shough and Behren Morton are back as well.

The potential leap on offense with 5th year senior Shough and multiple experienced and talented wideouts cannot be overlooked. That alone is generally a massive deal in the college game and the Big 12 in particular.

Meanwhile the defense brings back some disruptive and experienced starting defensive tackles, both starting cornerbacks, and field safety Dadrion Taylor-Demerson who picked off three passes and broke up five more playing behind nickel Waters in 2022.

Experienced lines, experienced skill lineups on either side, veteran quarterback, emerging playmakers, and an overall approach by a staff with a clear and coherent plan for winning Big 12 games.

Texas is the favorite in the league and most likely to get a playoff nod, but Texas Tech is right up there as the other favorite in the league and a darkhorse to put together a playoff run.