Well done. …… Again we win in a high scoring game this week. And I think anything is possible @ Home against Texas. I just dearly want to get to Texas 8 and 0!!!!!!!!! Wreck’em

Great Job LondonRaider.
 Our defense continues to befuddle me. I was at the game and then re-watched it Sunday. Like Seth C’s earlier grade out of the units from the TAMU game the best unit remains the defensive Line. Essentially in the TAMU game we lived off of the 5-6 QB hurries and the 4 sacks. Without those stellar plays we could have easily seen a 31 – 30 score going into the last 4 minutes and maybe its TAMU trying to run the clock out at home. With the great crowd noise thundering the over our heads. I rightly recognize the fact that it’s an 11 man team effort for the defensive unit. No one position or single player makes or breaks a series. But I believe the strength of the Tackles and defensive ends is going carry the team. From here on out. I don’t expect the LB’s or D Backs to get better in a quantum leap up in performance. Maybe they get a bit smarter now that they have 7 games under their belts. I watched the D- line miss Jerrod Johnson 5 – 7 times by a whisker just sliding out of an arm tackle. I don’t believe Tood Reesing avoids these big mitts rushing in on him. He can certainly out throw Johnson but look for the rush to take his throwing game away. That is down the field. He will complete the same 7-9 yarders just like we do. That being said realistically he’s going to throw over 350 yards on us. I.e. their offensive execution is good. I predict an intangible an effective rush would equal more take aways by the D backs because of the rush disrupting Reesing (kind like TTU vs MIzzou last year). So what’s it all mean? The Defense performs adequately with incremental improvements.

with the analysis. I also like how the schedule sets up for us so far. We have had plenty of tune-ups, now it’s time for the big boys. As far as the big boys, Kansas is a good team to start with. Their defense is not stellar, which will allow our offense to keep humming along while our defense can stay calm and focus on playing a very good offensive team. If they can be successful and keep the Big12 North’s first place team under 30 points, we will not only win the game but also win much needed confidence going into the UT game at home.

The UT game can go in any direction. I’m just having flashbacks to 2005 which set up almost identically. UT was number 2 in the newly released BCS and Tech was around 7 or 8, but we hadn’t played anyone good yet and all the analysts were saying the exact same thing as this year, “We still don’t know how good Tech really is, so we’ll find out after this game.” And we all know how it turned out…UT 52, Tech 17. And looking at the box score from that game, it doesn’t look like the offense did too bad.

http://sports.espn.go.com/ncf/boxscore?gameId=252950251

They just get couldn’t get much going or finish drives at only 5-16 on 3rd downs and one each of fumble and interception. Good things: We possessed the ball for 36 minutes, Taruean ran for almost 100 yards, Hodges total passing yards were good at 369 (but only 5.3 per attempt). Bad: you look closer and notice that we had 5!!! three and outs while Vince and Co. averaged 3.5 plays per scoring drive!!! You want to talk about scoring at will. You will not win games with those numbers. It was a classic case of getting steamrolled by a clearly superior opponent.

Some minor differences this year, though, to our advantage. This year, we have been highly ranked for the whole season, so the team has had time to adjust to the spotlight as the season goes on, the teams get better, and the spotlight gets brighter. In 2005, we came out of nowhere and were blindsided with “bigheadedness” (if that is a word). We screwed the pooch and got stomped by the Vincehorns.

Our quarterback has been in charge for 3 years now and has fought through some big wins, instead of the annual 5th year player/1st year starter from those days. And although we had some great receivers on that team, the depth and concentration of our guys this year should definitely outperform those guys. And we have already fought through some adversity this year with a couple close games and clear problems on defense and special teams.

The most obvious advantage is that the game is at home this year. The game was decided by 4 points in a 2006 loss and a 2002 win. Sandwiched in between those, though, was a 30 point loss.

In conclusion, based on the history of this game, anything can happen. It totally depends on which Tech team shows up, since we already know which Texas team will. This is our chance to turn that corner. I think our time is due and it starts with getting the job at a tough game on the road in Kansas this week.

I wrote it earlier but I wholeheartly believe if TECH focuses on KU and wins, anything is possible. I was at the OU game last year and I only hoped we would play well and we won. I just want to see us have the chance to beat texas in Lubbock. If we don’t fine but we hopefully will be 8-0 goin in!!!!!!! Wreck’em TECH

but someone please fire our special teams coach……also tech goes 1-3 in the next 4 games. if i’m wrong i buy beers for everyone on my porch. Smoke and mirrors boys, this is barely a top 20 team

Before I dive in to my opinion, I will first preface that on Saturday I attended the Tech-A&M game AND the Mizzou-Texas game. (Yes a very long day, but who else can say they saw 3 teams in the top 11 in one day…yes i know…my sports fandom is borderline insane…and while i wore a neutral colored grey shirt at the game, so as to not upset my UT alum friend who was nice enough to wear a Crabtree for Hesiman shirt in B/CS, I was proudly sporting my Tech hat in Austin)

What to take from Saturday in Kyle:

The D-Line is legit. For 3 straight conference games, I have seen them completely shut down any and all plays that occur between the tackles. They also have don e agrab job containing all three QBs, including two who have above average scrambling/running abilities (Freeman and Johnson). No complaints on that end.

With our LBs I guess I am a little on the fence with them. They have done a good job IMO with not letting runs break past the 2nd level and I feel they have done great in pass coverage when playing against TEs, passes to the short and center side of the field. For two games now we are basically seeing what alsmot cost us the 06 UTEP game. Teams are forcing our LBs to cover slot recievers and – as expected – they cannot keep up with them. Period.

The safeties I feel have been playing well this season with the exception of A&M and Nebraska. For whatever reason, they have just been leaving the 10-15 yard middle of the field wide open for the past two weeks. Whether this has to do with them trying to give support to the LBs who are trying to cover these slot recievers or they are playing the deep halves too much exposing this area of the field, but something needs to change.

The CBs (other than Wall and sometimes Reed) I feel do not have the talent, but the fact of the matter the scheme they are given to run is very ineffective, this could result in major trouble for us later down the line. I have given up on trying to argue the 7-8 yard cushion thing and in all honesty, if Ruff wants to run that type of game plan with the CBs, other changes have to be made to prevent temas from nickel and diming us all game.

I suggest we go with a Nickel/4-2-5 look. Put Hines back at FS and move McBath to a Nickel back/Rover. The kid has proven he can disrupt a run and can aid in the contain of any outside runs and outside of Wall I think he is our best man-to-man defender.

We should take advantage of the fact that we do have a good D-line and do what we can to support the portion of our D that has the potential to cost us games.

Anyways onto the outlook of our remaining. I have not watched too much of KU this year so I cannot give too much of an informed opinion of the game. Ruff should have the D-line look at last years KU-Mizzou game to see that if you cannot get pressure on Reesing to put your hands up. Reesing’s height does have an impact on his throws and if we play it right we should be abel to knock down a number of his passes on Saturday.

In reagrds to the Texas-Mizzou game, take note of what Texas has done this year but take it with a grain of salt. Yes Texas totally manhandled Mizzou in the first half but if you look into the game a little more you will see Texas’ D has more cracks in it than appears.

First, Mizzou’s O-Line was getting destroyed all game. Daniel had very little time in the pocket all game and Mizzou never could get the run game going. The INT he threw in the 4th was a direct result of the UT’s pressure.

Second, it was very evident that Mizzou was rattled by the crowd/environment for the first quarter and a half. With the north endzone renovation complete, DKR is easily now top 5 toughest places to play. The crowd of over 98k created a very loud and very hostile environment to play in and Mizzou has not played in an environment even close to this since last year in Norman. To me, this is on Pinkel for not having his players mentally focused and in the end, it took his offense the whole first quarter to settle down.

and when they did…

Third, Texas’ secondary has a lot of holes in it. Starting the 2nd drive of the 2nd QTR, Mizzou’s offense was finally in sync and had their way with the Longhorns’ D.

http://scores.espn.go.com/ncf/drivechart?gameId=282920251

If you notice, on this drive they find some success and take the ball all the way down inside the ten and turn it over on downs after a TD catch was reversed after replay. From there, the only time Texas stopped Mizzou was on Daniel’s INT (which as I mentioned was caused due to the pressure applied by Texas’ D-Line) and the FG (in which Mizzou moved 40+ yards in about 40 seconds to kick a FG as the half expired).

To me, Texas defensive situation is almosy mirrored to us. Great D-Line, Decent LB play (great in run support, not so much on pass D), not too great of talent in secondary.

The only difference in my mind is the coaches. With his D’s performance in the first half against Mizzou, Muschamp all but punched his ticket out of Austin and made himself the most eligible coaching prospect in the nation. I will be interested to see what schemes he comes up with for the next 2 weeks.

After watching Mizzou, I have confidence that our O-Line will be able to provide more protection. If that is the case Graham should be able to pick a part their D. If Coach Leach is reading this, if you take one thing away from this, it is this: DO NOT EVEN TRY TO GET THE RUN GAME GOING AGAINST TEXAS. It will be a futile effort, with the strength of that d-line and Muschamps elaborate blitz packages, we will be lucky to crack the 50 total rush yard mark. And with the way McCoy is playing and his ability to methodically move down the field eating up the clock, every offensive possesion counts and while it’s nice to keep the defense honest, we will be in a shootout with Texas and we need to go with what we do best and pass the shit out of the ball on Nov. 1.

tremendous analysis by everyone. This is great stuff.

I would respectfully disagree that the offenses we’ve played are a good measuring stick. They aren’t and it’s not just “numbers.”

Look at it this way…if, say, UMass, EWU and Nevada all lined up against say, OU, UT and OSU, what do you think the outcome would be? Exactly.

The numbers Tech has posted defensively have come against some of the weakest teams we’ve played in recent memory. And we’re still rather anemic on that side of the ball. I completely disregard our INT number as an indicator of how good that piece of the pie is because five of those came against a true freshman QB playing on one of the worst teams in D-I (SMU). Take those away, and we have 6 in 6 other games. That’s not terrible by any means, but it’s not a true judge of performance. The thing about stats is, as Texas’ defensive coordinator say’s, they’re for losers. (no, I’m not calling you a loser)

There is zero chance we can win a division, conference or national championship without outstanding defense – as we will soon find out in the next month. It bugs me to no end that this team has so much potential year in and year out and the defensive side is always, ALWAYS the reason we don’t acheive more success. It’s the same this year. I have no confidence that our boys and our coaches will rise up to the massive challenge that faces us. I have always been and will always be a “show me” kind of guy. Until the Red Raiders show me, I have nothing but history to rely on. Potential, as we’ve seen in the last 8 yrs, means jack squat. Performance is all that counts. And against the better teams, our performance has typically (yes, there are a few excpetions) been jack squat.

Think about it…we were one holding penalty and one slightly overthrown pass from being in the fight of our lives against the Aggies. This is the same Ag team that needed some last minute heroics to keep from being beat at home by Army and an Ag team that indeed lost at home to Arkansas State. Yes, the defense stepped up the second half, but against a KU or UT or whomever is left, if they play like crap the first half, we simply won’t have enough to catch up. We were quite lucky to be down by three. Could easily have been 21. But it wasn’t, so I do give them credit.

Basically, I’m tired of 8-4 year in and year out – and having the exact same thing be the reason; defense. Sure, it’s a nice bowl game and keeps us in the semi-spotlight. But I’m ready to be a national presence, not a south division presence.

At some point, Leach will HAVE to realize that he’s got to get someone in here who gives a huge crap about the play of our defense. He HAS to realize that just better than average is not going to keep passing muster. His offense put a lot of butts in seats, and that’s awesome. But soon, the natives will get restless if there aren’t steps up instead of steps sideways. Those butts will want to see some wins over real teams on a more than abberation basis. It’s all fun and games to walk over a crap KSU or a crap Aggie team. But where he earns it is versus OU, UT, OSU and whoever else is good.

End Rant.

If we want stats…
Tech, as of today, checks in defensively at:
Pass Defense 103rd (lower 25 percent)
Rush Defense 12th (upper 25 percent – sadly, most teams we will play aren’t geared to run)
Scoring Defense 43rd (second 25 percent)
Total Defense 58th (darn near smack dab in the middle)

Just an FYI for those interested.

First Tech and UT box score from 2007:

                                                     TT UT
FIRST DOWNS………………. 26 33
RUSHES-YARDS (NET)………… 7-10 62-283
PASSING YDS (NET)…………. 466 268
Passes Att-Comp-Int……….. 48-36-1 30-21-1
TOTAL OFFENSE PLAYS-YARDS….. 55-476 92-551
Fumble Returns-Yards………. 0-0 0-0
Punt Returns-Yards………… 1-4 1-5
Kickoff Returns-Yards……… 5-100 6-107
Interception Returns-Yards…. 1-0 1-2
Punts (Number-Avg)………… 1-41.0 1-48.0
Fumbles-Lost……………… 1-0 3-0
Penalties-Yards…………… 6-68 7-89
Possession Time…………… 19:48 40:12
Third-Down Conversions…….. 3 of 7 12 of 18
Fourth-Down Conversions……. 0 of 1 4 of 4
Red-Zone Scores-Chances……. 4-5 7-7
Sacks By: Number-Yards…….. 1-7 1-7

OU vs Texas 2008 Box score:
    
                                          UT OU
1st Downs 23 20
Total Yards 438 435
Passing 277 387
Rushing 161 48
Penalties 6-55 10-73
3rd Down Convers 6-13 7-15
4th Down Convers 0-0 0-3
Turnovers 0 2
Possession 37:10 22:50

Missoui v Texas boxscore 2008

                                         MU UT
1st Downs 24 32
Total Yards 348 591
Passing 318 388
Rushing 30 203
Penalties 6-61 8-80
3rd Down Convers 5-10 10-12
4th Down Convers 0-1 0-0
Turnovers 1 0
Possession 23:34 36:26

What you will find from all of these statistics is that no one runs much against Texas. The team to rush the most against Texas this year was Colorado. They tried it a total of 15 times. Which means that basically no one is trying to rush against Texas this year.

The most rushing yards given up by Texas is 68 yards. Even so UT was burned by all teams with quick fast straight runs which averaged 8 yards a carry.

Thus draws and counters are not the best type of runs against Texas. They take too long to develop. But Texas also over pursues. Texas was burned twice with a trick counter reverse 3 times over the last 2 years. The longest run was 17 yards.

Texas has given up all its yards passing defensively. This is a product of no one running against them. OSU will be the only team who will try to rush more than 30 carries against Texas.

Defensively, Texas has a very solid defense against the Run.

However they are terrible agaist the pass. The problem is that Texas tees up after they get ahead because they know the other team has to throw the ball in order to win. Thus they bring great pressure.

Offensively, Texas success depends on McCoy running the ball. McCory acounts for nearly 1/2 of all rushing attempts of Texas this season. Prevent McCoy from rushing, Texas falls. Its the same issue with Tebow at Florida.

Thus Tech has to assign a player whose only job is to prevent McCoy from rushing or scrambling for yards. This is how Tebow caused the Florida lose and it will be how Texas will fall.

The Texas offense depends too much on McCoy even though they are trying to develop their running backs. McCoy has been forced to run to keep drives alive and to make the plays. The challenge is to take McCoy’s running ability out of the game and force him to beat Tech passing. If McCoy has to be Tech passing, Texas loses.