‘Texas Tech Plays Defense Now,’ Says Defensive Coordinator David Gibbs
Coach David Gibbs is always a fun interview, and his honesty is refreshing and entertaining. He hates numbers and naming players directly because the only thing he cares about is winning. That's something Texas Tech, as a team, hasn't done enough of in the past few years.
Trust me, the coaching staff gets that.
The overwhelming theme for the defense at this year's Texas Tech football media day can be boiled down to two words:
'Depth' and 'Finish.'
The defense didn't get a ton of help in the 2018 recruiting class because they already had six red shirts waiting in the wings. Now, they add around those capable players to the 10 starters and multiple backups returning from 2017. That means, for the first time in the Kingsbury Era and maybe in the entirety of the Air Raid era, not only will Texas Tech have capable starters, but they will have depth at every position.
As far as finishing goes, the Texas Tech defense started well in several games last season, but couldn't finish the job in crunch time. The games against Kansas State and West Virginia come to mind. During our talk with Coach Gibbs, he mentioned the Bowl Game against USF, specifically.
Gibbs knows that just getting better isn't good enough. "As much improvement as we made, it still wasn't near good enough," Gibbs said. "We have to get to a point where we can actually win a game on defense, unlike the bowl game."
The defensive mastermind finished by explaining what the hashtag #thingshavechanged means to him and the program.
"We actually play defense now, which, four years ago when I stepped foot in the door, we did not play defense," he said.