This season, Texas Tech ranks second in the country, averaging 81.1 plays per game. Most recently, in their 56-48 win over Oklahoma State last weekend, the Red Raiders ran 92 plays on offense.
"Offensively, I think it starts with their tempo, they’re going to play at a really high tempo," West Virginia head coach Neal Brown said.
The Mountaineers are headed into their regular season finale against Texas Tech with some familiarity with the Red Raiders' offensive style.
Two years ago, when WVU faced the Red Raiders in Lubbock, they ran 103 plays against the Mountaineers. Last year, Texas Tech ran 81 plays but scored only 13 total points.
"I think the first thing is we got to get aligned to their tempo. That’s where they really feast if they can get their tempo going. That usually happens after a made first or a positive play on first down. So we’ve got to do a nice job of getting lined up. I think P and 10’s, first play of the drive, is going to be critical downs for us. And then we got to be able to contain their run game. If they can be where they’re balanced, it’s going to be a tough day. We’ve got to be able to limit their run game and minimize their explosive passes," Brown said.
Saturday's game will mark the fourth game for WVU defensive coordinator Jeff Koonz, who said the biggest thing for his team is communication.
"It’s just communication. They’re trying to get you off-balanced, you’re trying to get a call in, they can get their call in, and they’re trying to get it in faster than you can get yours in and if they can change the math pre-snap and make you work, that’s what they’re trying to do. Especially if they can find an automatic or a master check or something like that, and they know they kind of have you. So obviously, you want to eliminate that, you want to not be predictable, and at the same time, you want to make sure you got 11 guys facing the line of scrimmage when the ball is snapped," Koonz said.
West Virginia ranks 109th in the country on defense in yards allowed per play, while Texas Tech ranks ninth in the country in plays of 10 or more yards.
Koonz said the key to slowing down Texas Tech is winning on the early downs of the possession to one, take them out of their rhythm, but two, force them to substitute, which means WVU can match and get their play in.
"They’re going to limit your substitutions 100 percent. Obviously, something through the rules, if they substitute, they allow you to substitute, so we’re always going to take advantage of that whenever we can. If they don’t allow you to substitute, we’re going to be prepared to play the entire series with our conditioning, with our mindset, that’s never going to affect us in our heads. We’re going to approach a week like that like we do every week," Koonz said.
Koonz said his defense will also have experience against this kind of pace, saying the Mountaineer offense, which ran 75 plays against UCF last week and 88 plays against Baylor the week prior, has helped get his defense ready.
"The thing about it is they play at a very, very, high rate but every team we’ve played this year at times is able to do the exact same thing. No different than our offense in what we see in practice every day. This is something we practice against year-round. I feel like our guys are going to be prepared for that," Koonz said.
Overall, Koonz thinks the Mountaineer defense will have success if they can win the early downs and try to then steal possessions.
"Usually, you’re going to have 3-4 seconds to really see where you’re at, and that’s also why starting a possession strong is really important," Koonz said. "If you can be really good on the first play of the drive, possession and 10, and now you’re second and long, well, they might go tempo, but if it doesn’t work and now it’s third and long, and it took 30 seconds to get there. And that’s how you steal possessions, and you can win that, you can stay ahead.
"You’ve got to look at that as an advantage, and if we can do a great job on P and 10 of stopping the run and getting lined up and stopping what they’re trying to do to affect us to get us into second and long, that’s got to be the positive. That’s something we did a great job of on Saturday is: our P and 10 numbers actually weren’t great, but our second down numbers were the best they’ve been in a long, long time."
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