Takeaways: Keith Patterson talks Oklahoma loss, OK State’s offense and more

Texas Tech defensive coordinator Keith Patterson’s unit allowed a total of 55 points on Saturday to the Big 12’s powerhouse Oklahoma, who remain one of the top teams in the nation consistently.

Patterson told the media following practice on Monday that he believes the Red Raiders began to lose confidence in critical situations during the second half of the loss to Arizona. Patterson expanded on his statement, saying the first two openers were solid performances but have since declined in making stops on third downs, bringing down the quarterback and being penalized, to hit on a few reasons.

Fixing those big plays will come from regaining that momentum the Red Raider defense built up through the first two games of the season.

“It’s just about having confidence and getting guys to compete at the point of attack,” Patterson said. “I think sometimes – in it all, shoot, I’m 100 percent accountable for all of it. We gotta figure out ways to be able to compete in those situations. Even prior to the third and 17 – just didn’t have the confidence to come up and challenge. But, again, that’s coaching, that’s our responsibility to figure it out and get guys to compete.”

Yards after contact were big for Oklahoma. Patterson said missed tackles were one of the reasons the Red Raiders struggled to slow down Oklahoma.

Oklahoma’s offense is ranked sixth in total offense in the nation, so missing tackles won’t put any team in a good position. Do it against a top team in the country and it doesn’t get better. Texas Tech found that out and Patterson knows it’s something they need to work on with Chuba Hubbard of Oklahoma State coming into the game on Saturday as the nations leading rusher.

“The biggest thing is, and any time you play people with that athleticism and you have a lot of one-on-one tackles, we gotta create population to the ball carrier,” Patterson said. “We gotta get guys breaking the stack. We were doing it earlier in the season. It seems like it’s tapered off. Whether it’s a confidence issue, a coaching issue, I don’t know. But we’re doing everything we can to obviously correct it, point it out on video, trying to get our guys to say, ‘hey, here’s what happens when you’re one-on-one against base.’ It’s going to be an open-field tackle. You’re not going to knock the guy down. You gotta be able to come to balance, be able to get the guy down in those situations.”

Patterson said there’s no true way to emulate in practice what you might see on game day. However, he thinks tackling is a mixture of mindset and reps at it during practice. Mindset plays a bigger part in it with the amount of confidence one of his players has to follow through and make a smart tackle.

Patterson added they emphasize commitment on tackles, working on technique, angles and such in practice to improve on the defensive side of the ball.

The Big 12 is home to some of the best receivers like Oklahoma’s CeeDee Lamb, Texas Tech’s TJ Vasher and Oklahoma State’s Tylan Wallace. Patterson said it’s easy for someone not on the field to say a way to slow down these receivers than it is for the players actually covering them.

He mentioned coaching steps in here in building confidence and working on the craft of covering a dynamic threat to help contain the production from those opposing wide outs.

Moving on to Oklahoma State, Patterson said the Cowboys present a three-headed monster with Spencer Sanders at quarterback, Hubbard at running back and Wallace at receiver.

However, Patterson mentioned that Mike Gundy runs more of a traditional offense in that the Cowboys emphasize running the ball. Patterson circled back to say a guy like Hubbard will make you pay if it’s a true one-on-one matchup in the open field. He reiterated the importance of swarming to the ball on defense.

Sanders will be the third straight dual-threat quarterback the Red Raiders will see. Patterson broke down Sanders’ play by saying he’s a mixture of Arizona’s Khalil Tate and Oklahoma’s Jalen Hurts.

“He’s probably somewhere between those two guys,” Patterson said. “He’s got the elusiveness, but also runs with power for a QB. I don’t think I’ve seen him slide one time. When he pulls the ball down, he’s going to run it. He’s running to try to get first downs. Again, almost runs the ball like Jalen. He runs likes a running back. So that’s why I say there’s three components to that offense that makes them go.”

Patterson wrapped up his presser by explaining some positives he can take away from a 55-16 loss.

Here’s what he said:

“3-of-9 on third down obviously would be considered a positive,” Patterson said. “That’s almost 70 percent against a pretty good football team. Easily could’ve been higher than that. Didn’t create the number of takeaways we wanted to. We were 40 percent in the red zone and we shoot for 60 percent so that was not necessarily a positive but some good things there. You know, at the end of the day, 55 points or whatever, I mean, if you sit there and look at – I look at how many were self-inflicted and a lot of it was. We sit there, we hold them and we jump offsides on a punt. We sit there, we hold them and they get a PI on third down. There’s two opportunities that led to 14 points. The two that I mentioned in the first half led to 14 points.

Again, I get it – it’s 55 points against a pretty good team. You cannot make those types of mistakes, especially against a top-five team in the country and expect to come out of there with anything less. There’s a lot of people who got 55 points scored on them this week, probably.”