There's an article in today's Lubbock Avalanche Journal titled 'McNeill tries to re-light fire under Tech defenders.' McNeil is Texas Tech defensive coordinator Ruffin McNeil.
McNeil took over for former DC Lyle Sentenich, and he had Tech playing pretty good defense for 3 games. Then they went to Missouri. Thirty four points and 422 yards later and you wonder if they're back to square one.
"I thought we played 29 plays very good,'' McNeil said Tuesday, "and I thought we played 38 where we didn't play 11-man football.''
That's still 29 plays better than the old Tech defense, but to compete in the Big 12 you have to play consistently solid defense. The Red Raiders might have finally figured that out after a decade of conference play.
"He (McNeill) said that wasn't us,'' senior cornerback Chris Parker said. "He said we didn't look as fast as we have been. He said we needed to get back to the basics and start moving fast like we did the last three games.''
Those last 3 games included Northwestern State and Iowa State, two steaming piles of shit on offense. The third team was Texas A&M, about as one dimensional as a team can be. A good and balanced Missouri offense rolled them.
So the jury is still out for me regarding whether Tech has actually turned the corner on defense.