WVU football defense shows flashes against No. 15 Texas Tech, doesn’t mask the terrible 1st half
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If you look at West Virginia football's defensive performance against No. 15 Texas Tech by looking at one half at a time, it could be decent or really bad depending on which half you look at.
At times, this defense shows potential, as it has in the past two games, but those few flashes don't cover up the fact that it's still abysmal for a large portion of the game, resulting in the 53-48 loss.
In the first half, the West Virginia social media was up in arms again over the defense. The feed was flooded with photos of defensive coordinator Zac Alley, saying he should be fired at half. There were the 'what ifs' flying around about how if WVU had a capable defense, it'd be a top 25 team with how the offense plays. It was completely valid.
Rich Rodriguez agrees it was “gross.”
"Couldn’t play much worse," Rich Rodriguez said. "They were going against air in the first half. It’s just ridiculous.”
Texas Tech went up and down the field on WVU's defense in the first half. Texas Tech scored a touchdown on six of the seven first-half drives for a whopping 41 points. The Red Raiders had 494 yards, and it was evenly split: 287 yards through the air and 207 on the ground. Texas Tech averaged 12.7 yards per play.
WVU was once again gashed by explosive plays. The Mountaineers had coverage busts, missed gap assignments and plenty of whiffs on tackles. The Red Raiders had six plays of 30-plus yards.
"It was ridiculous," Rodriguez said. "Our defense was just ridiculous."
At the rate the defense was playing, Texas Tech was looking like it was going to hang 70. But, like the defense had the past two games, it showed bright spots in the second half.
After allowing six touchdowns, WVU's defense forced four straight punts out of the locker room. The Red Raiders couldn't get anything on the ground. Texas Tech went from running the ball for 8.3 yards per play to just 2.5. WVU also had two sacks.
"I thought in the second half they hit harder, played harder, at least gave us a chance," Rodriguez said. "They did respond in the second half, but it was too late by then."
The defense allowed the offense to retake the lead in the third quarter after everything felt lost. But then the offense stalled, and the defense couldn't hold back Texas Tech long enough to win the game.
WVU put Texas Tech in multiple third-and-long situations. But, on multiple occasions, quarterback Thomas Castellanos just threw it up, and either his receiver would come down with it, or they would draw a pass interference. Sometimes the pass rush wouldn't create enough pressure, which forced the secondary to have to cover longer, and other times the secondary just didn't guard. Castellanos threw for 363 yards and five touchdowns.
Texas Tech’s offense scored 10 points in the fourth to win the game.
"We need to work on the deep ball more in practice, in my opinion," Rodriguez said. "That's pretty obvious."
The defense made up for the mistakes in the middle of the fourth at the end of the game. WVU's defense forced a goal-line stand and a turnover on downs after Texas Tech was given favorable field position. That made it just a field goal to send the game to overtime.
The performance in the second half doesn't mask what happened in the first, and doesn’t help the total of 638 yards the defense allowed, which was a season-high for Texas Tech. They've yet to put a complete game together in Big 12 play.
The Mountaineers have three weeks to figure out how to do that. From first watch, Rodriguez said there were players in spots to make plays; they just didn't. That has to be corrected quickly.
Luckily, it gets a softer landing spot against Kansas, who's been struggling and has won one Big 12 game. Rodriguez knows the defense has to get better if they want to win at least one more game this season, getting to bowl eligibility.
"We've been trying to figure it out," Rodriguez said. "We had an open date to try and get better with it. You're not going to win games when you play that terrible defensively in the first half.