Leftwich’s checklist for offensive efficiency
Texas Tech has put up 60-plus points in its first two games of the season but offensive coordinator Mack Leftwich still has a checklist of things to focus on. Head coach Joey McGuire acknowledged what he wanted to see cleaned up. Leftwich’s turn came Monday.
He was vocal when asked about redzone efficiency.
“I think from this past week that was one thing that I thought we could definitely improve on,” Leftwich told the media Monday. “We were four of seven on redzone touchdowns. One of them was the victory at the end of the game so really, four of six, when you look at it. I think on the two that we didn’t score on the third-down conversion, there was a third-and-five. It was really just kind of a miscommunication between the quarterback and the receiver that we’ve got to clean up. Can’t have that in a critical down and distance… A lot of that to me is self-inflicted wounds and lack of execution and focus that we’ve got to do a better job coaching up to make sure that doesn’t continue.”
Running tempo effectively is checked off on the checklist
The tempo looks from the offense were apparent in the first two games of the season. So much so it got Howard Sampson and other offensive linemen telling McGuire about the pace. Leftwich’s assessment of the unit’s tempo coinciding with execution is so far, so good.
“It’s been pretty solid, I think you’ve seen flashes of the tempo really being an advantage for us,” he said. “And then in week one, there were times also like the blitz pickup with Cam (Dickey) that was on a tempo play. So I think as a coordinator, having to have that balance. I feel like I maybe did a better job on Saturday… You see a lot of instances where the defense is just getting lined up. The touchdown to Coy (Eakin) on the double move, that was a great example of tempo.
We had TC (Terrance Carter) wide open on the sideline on another one, putting the quads formation in the boundary. We’ve been able to take advantage of some of the things that tempo presents for an offense. But also finding that fine line between where’s the execution start to peel off and what can our guys handle. We’re getting there.”
Correctable issues give promise as season ramps up
Leftwich was critical of the redzone offense and being more effective in the low block. In short-yardage situations, the Red Raiders missed some pivotal opportunities. The good news? Leftwich doesn’t see any issues that aren’t correctable. That’s one more thing he doesn’t have to worry about on the checklist.
“We need to keep straining harder in practice to play cleaner football,” he said. “A lot of the fundamental, the issues that we’ve had so far, the times maybe where we stalled out, a lot of it is just self-inflicted fundamental issues that we can clean up which is a good feeling. We know at the end of the day we can clean those things up. It’s not a glaring scheme issue or personnel issue, it’s things that are very coachable and correctable. That’s what we’ll work on this week, attacking that. Hopefully that shows up on Saturday as we get into conference play after this week.”
