Kittley, DeRuyter talk Wyoming misstep, shift focus towards Oregon
After the Red Raiders fell against the Wyoming Cowboys on Saturday in Laramie, many Tech fans were questioning the Texas Tech offense and it’s play calling.
Offensive coordinator Zach Kittley and defensive coordinator Tim DeRuyter spoke to the media about what they believe went wrong for their respective units on Saturday.
“I mean, you go back, and you look, you know, starting the second quarter we had three drives in a row that were just bad football,” Kittley said. “On the first drive, we were about to throw Tharp a wide-open crossing pattern and the ball slipped out of the QB’s hand. Next drive we throw an interception on the second play and on the third we have a motion, and we go to fast.”
Kittley took the blame for the Red Raider offense and said that he must be more aggressive in the play calling against Oregon. There was a noticeable shift in play calling from the Red Raiders after they took a 17-0 lead, and it cost them.
“I gotta be more aggressive of a play caller,” Kittley said. “At the end of the day that this comes back to me. We got to be a lot better on offense to win that game last Saturday. I got to be more aggressive this week and then take some shots downfield and try to hit our spots in the run game.”
The Oregon defense has plenty of playmakers in their personel group and Kittley spoke about the challenges he expects to face this weekend.
“They’re a very multiple defense, mixing up the fronts and coverages like they do,” Kittley said. “They're very talented, you know, they’ve only got four starters on this depth chart that we’re transfers from last year or that saw limited snaps from last year.”
DeRuyter also spoke about what he thinks he will see from the Oregon offense led by the seasoned quarterback in Bo Nix.
“Oregon has elite athletes, they recruit at a very high level,” DeRuyter said. “They are long and fast and very athletic. They’ve got a quarterback who has played a ton of football, like last week, he can beat you with his legs but probably even more because of his speed.”
Like Kittley, DeRuyter wasn’t completely thrilled with his defenses result on Saturday and spoke about the changes that he needs to make ahead of a really big challenge against Oregon.
“We weren't disciplined as a football team. We didn’t do a good job of staying in pass rush lanes, the quarterback was able to escape the pocket. In our red zone defense, we had some poor communication at times,” DeRuyter said. “We've got to learn from the mistakes a week, we made last weekend and get those things corrected.”
Kittley echoed that he is still confident in this team and believes everything is in front of them still.
“We still have every goal ahead of just say we're looking for,” Kittley said. “A Big 12 championship is still out there for us, and that’s really the ultimate goal. It’s week two and we’re going to continue to get better as we move forward.”
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