You pretty well nailed it — my compliments, and they don’t come lightly.
Coupla points on Tech football: The school has always done better than anyone in the state when it comes to attracting and developing walk-ons, and this is good because Leach’s program has awfully high attrition among its scholarship players (I have theories on this, but not now).
Also, I don’t think the defense is as weak as you portray it. ANY wide-open offense is going to be feast or famine. When the latter happens, the defense is either stuck with poor field position or given too little time to rest. Even when the former happens, the defense may have to return to the field quickly after the offense scores a long TD. Defense is best played with 75-80 yards to defend, not 40, and after its offense has held the ball a few minutes.
As for Red Raiders ever winning the Big 12, I doubt it (unless Mack and Stoops leave their jobs). Tech won’t win in Norman this year and won’t win in Austin next year, and so it goes. Also, the more times a program plays Leach’s offense, and the more copies of Leach’s attack that other schools employ, the less effective that offense will be.

Avg. yards allowed per game in 2007:

Texas 374.8
Tech 367.1

OUCH!

Imagine what his teams could do with even a mediocre defense.

Particularly in the case of UT fans, this just wreaks of Big Brother Syndrome. Great, we’re better than Tech. We all know that. Why the need to belittle what they’ve done in the Big 12. Again, for the close minded, Tech’s the only school in Big 12 history w/o a losing record. And winning either 8 or 9 games per year for 6 years is no joke.

They have the best WR in the country, the preeminent sports journalist in the country wrote an expose on him in the NYT, records are set each and every year. Why not celebrate what they’ve done? So what if they haven’t won any championships. They’re a unique story and program and it’s good for the game, and good for the Big 12.

Teams like Louisville aren’t considered mediocre, but Tech has had just as much success basically, in a much tougher conference, and have been more consistent. There’s nothing mediocre about the program right now. I don’t get the Big Brother need to disparage them.

And here’s one final thought for those who say they don’t play anybody OOC. Well, why the hell would college coaches want to play them? There’s nothing to gain. You won’t see an offense like that really the rest of the year. If you win, meh, solid win. If you lose, you’re in trouble. I can see why nobody wants to play them, ever, even at home.

Maybe not best comparison. Name just came to my head. How about Clemson? They have a very similar record since Leech joined Tech. Point is, his career record in Lubbock is far from mediocre. If you take out his first two years (7 wins a piece I believe), his record’s on the cusp of being top 15 over that span. There’s just nothing mediocre about them. They’re not contenders really for titles against the likes of UT and OU, but for the resources and (lack there of) tradition, they’re really doing great things.

And as you said jc25, who the hell doesnt enjoy watching them play? Even if its comical how they compromise their defense at times, it’s pure entertainment.

That with Leach there, they will never contend seriously for a national title, and probably not a Big 12 title. They can and will field good teams that can threaten bigger college football powers and win 10 games, but with his coaching philosophy, I just don’t see it. You don’t win championships by ignoring defense and special teams.

I will disagree a little with this post: Better defensive players don’t come to Lubbock not only because Texas and OU are better places. Any smart person KNOWS that Leach doesn’t focus on defense. Why come to a school where they won’t help you improve? Even players who would be guaranteed starting defensive jobs at Tech would be wiser to go to Oklahoma, Texas, LSU, and even A&M, even though they would risk competition.

This even hurts Leach on offense. Another big reason I don’t think Leach will ever win big prizes is his refusal to develop a consistent run game. I’ll give him props for his gimmick offense, and it can be entertaining. However, there are always times when you need to grind out tough yardage, and Tech can never consistently do that. What top runningback wants to go there? Leach may attract decent QB recruits (even the great ones are wary, because no Tech quarterback is ever successfully prepared for the NFL and Harrell was the first non-fifth year QB in a while) and good WR recruits, but the other key parts of the football team will always be lacking as long as he sticks with his current philosophy.

I think it’s way too simplistic to say that if Tech had a good defense, they’d be awesome. They need a change in culture, in philosophy, and with that will come a natural sacrifice to offensive numbers. Part of the reason they often have gaudy stats is because their defense can’t stop anyone and it turns into a Wild West shootout. They also need a better run game; this past season, our shootout game featured something like 10 measly yards on the ground from Tech. That’s not going to cut it. When they brought that crap against our national title team of ‘05, they got annihilated as they had to settle for dinking and dunking for measly yardage against our fast secondary.

Leach is funny, and his Raiders are a dangerous team on Saturdays. I am not trying to rain down on Tech right now. However, I can’t simply say that if we stuck a good defense in Lubbock, they’d be great. I think the problems are inherent to the very culture Leach has brought. If they want better D, a better kicking game, and a better run game, Leach has to leave. But if he does, there goes his wacky offense… and then this discussion doesn’t make much sense anymore.

Other than one comment about Tech having better total defense numbers there isn’t one statistic cited in this thread. It’s just assumed Tech’s defense sucks balls. That’s possibly because Texas has scored 240 points over the last five Tech games (48 ppg) and that’s all that has been watched. Why don’t we dig a little more deeply.

These are the ranks of Texas Tech with respect to the Big XII in total defense and scoring defense the past five years:

Total D          Scoring D             
2003         12                      9                           
2004           7                      9                            
2005           5                      2                           
2006           6                      8
2007           3                      5

In fact, in 2005, Texas Tech was #18 in scoring defense, #15 in pass efficiency defense, and #30 in total defense nationally. By all rights, they had a good quality defense that year. Apparently it’s been forgotten by everyone because something special was happening in Austin in 2005.

They have finished in the top half of the conference in total defense 3 years running and were in the top half in scoring defense 2 of the past 3 years. I’m not arguing that they’re great. They aren’t. But they aren’t terrible and I’d say they have been at the least mediocre the past 3 years.

I have left one statistic out however. In rushing defense the past five years they rank 10, 11, 10, 10, and 10 in the Big XII. In every other way, they’ve improved pretty significantly except for this and I actually think this is where the Leach offense has a drawback. They just don’t get a chance to practice against a physical punishing running team because the Leach offense isn’t physical and punishing. I’d consider it similar to how option teams often struggle against sophisticated passing attacks. They just don’t see it done at a high enough quality in practice to get maximum value out of those team practice reps.

That being said, I don’t think Leach should change the offense. He has to find a way to make his rushing defense less of a liability. And in that respect I agree with the original post. He has to make that offense not just great, but almost historically great in terms of consistency and points. His best running defense is probably his own passing offense.

That didn’t work very well. In total defense Tech ranked 12, 7, 5, 6, and 3 the past five years versus the Big XII. In scoring defense Tech ranked 9, 9, 2, 8, and 5.

I think the flow here indicates that if Leach should moderate the offense, shift some emphasis to defense – both recruiting and allocating players – the team might have better balance and have an improved defensive posture.

I think the odds of this happening are about the same as the winds dying down in Lubbock for six months.

DKR put the best athletes on defense.
Fred did too.
Mackovic put them on offense. Our general recruiting ability helped his defenses early on but couldn’t save it in the long run. Although we did get a residual taste for wine (see FP).

It was the Spiker who started pushing Tech to the passing edge before he lost “institutional control” as they say. Spike knew Texas football and understood, with the coming of the Big 12, that Tech had to have defense. And he parlayed the Bill Yoeman facility for local recruiting into West Texas style football. It wasn’t a big empire, it certainly wasn’t Houston, but it was part of the basis for Leach. Maybe he should cast a wider net nationally although I recommend blindfolding recruits who actually visit.

Leach just amped up the offensive side and let the defense take what was left. He can’t let the defense moderate much because that’s his recruiting siren song. Pirates plunder people who don’t have much defense; they studiously avoid well-armed opponents. Unfortunately, the Big 12 schedule isn’t made for pirates. Aaaaargggggghhhhh.

The real gamble for the future is if he is willing to moderate the offense, come down 100-150 yards and 10-15 points a game and invest that in the defense. Does he want to get serious? Has he looked at his team in light of the kind of teams he’d being playing at the BCS top level? (Now that’s an ouch.) Certainly he can rationalize that as well as he rationalizes the current situation. He’s a fricking lawyer (no offense to lawyers) and a pro rationalizer, and obviously an offensive detailer of the most obsessed sort.

So, while I like BZ’s post and agree with most of it, I think Leach is maximizing his early advantage right now – which will probably be a 7-0 start – to get TV and recruiting attention.

And I also see they are two injuries from oblivion.