A bold Big 12 reporter straight up went there at media days. He asked Texas Tech Red Raiders head coach Kliff Kingsbury why his defense is always awful.
The first day of Big 12 Media Days at the Ford Center in Frisco, Texas is in the books. One of the teams speaking with the Power 5 conference’s media was Kliff Kingsbury’s Texas Tech Red Raiders. This will be Kingsbury’s fifth year leading his alma mater’s program and we still need an important question answered: Why is Texas Tech’s defense so horrible all the time?
One reporter at Big 12 Media Days just went there and demanded a reason why Kingsbury’s Red Raiders defense can’t hold any opponent under 30 points a game? Texas Tech puts up a ton of points in the Air Raid offense, but are the stereotype associated with bad defense in the Big 12.
They essentially pillow fight in Lubbock on the gridiron, if we’re being honest. Kingsbury’s response was funny, albeit sad with a “I don’t know” sort of response. Can’t we just talk about Patrick Mahomes II? Oh wait, he plays for the Kansas City Chiefs now.
Kingsbury was the former star quarterback under Mike Leach for the Red Raiders from 1998 to 2002. He would spend a few years as a backup quarterback in the NFL before getting back into coaching in 2008 with the Houston Cougars under Kevin Sumlin’s watch.
While the Red Raiders have been to two bowl games in four years under Kingsbury, they score too many points to be just 24-26 as a football team under his watch. It doesn’t help that the Air Raid has set up shop in other Big 12 campuses besides Lubbock, most notably in Oklahoma and West Virginia.
Next: 30 bucket list items for college football fans
Texas Tech is a proud Power 5 program in a state with too much football talent to be this bad on defense. Perhaps a slight change in offensive philosophy could help the Red Raiders defense by default? Run the ball a few more times, chew up some clock and give the defense an opportunity to breathe and play real defense.