Shiel Wood talks depth, priorities to be successful this season
Recent history has not been kind to the Red Raiders defensively. After finishing 126th in the country in total defense last season, head coach Joey McGuire decided it was time for a change. During the offseason, McGuire hired Shiel Wood, who was previously the defensive coordinator at Houston.
Now with a Texas Tech team that has been talked about all offseason and added some much-needed depth, Coach Wood is confident in leading the defense to be one of the best in the country. During Texas Tech media days on Tuesday, Coach Wood talked to the media about how he has approached coaching players while also implementing a new defensive scheme, along with his confidence in the players and how he wants to create his defensive identity at Tech.
Wood’s style of defense
While at Houston, Wood took the Cougars from being ranked 105th nationally for scoring and 112th for total defense to 25th in the country for total defense and second in the Big 12 for total defense. He accomplished this in his first and only year with the Cougars. Wood now looks to make drastic changes for a Tech defense that ranked second to last in the Big 12.
“I’d like us to be an attacking style of defense to where within the techniques that we’re playing up front, at second level, in our coverage, we’re aggressive to those techniques based on the situation of the game,” Wood said. “That’s the style of defense we would like to play, and then we like to be a unit that plays as hard as anybody in the country.”
With two new coordinators being brought in this offseason, it can take time for those relationships to jell. Now that the season is only a month away, being intentional about how his players learn his technique has been a priority.
“We try to go maybe a little bit slower with the scheme so that we can work on the fundamentals and techniques that are going to help those guys win,” Wood said. “If we can do that, then we allow our guys to reach their full potential. Being a little bit slower to where our guys can have confidence in what they’re doing and how to do it… as they gain that confidence, then we can ratchet up the install or ratchet up situational football calls that we have, third down, red zone, whatever the case may be.”
Potential in creating turnovers
With several new faces on defense coming in from the transfer portal and solid returners, Coach Wood believes that this team can be special. With so much depth and talent, the approach to obtaining turnovers is a specific mindset.
“I think if we’re focusing on playing really good defense, then the takeaways come with that. If you’re focused on ‘I got to get takeaways,’ sometimes, maybe you’re not executing the defense like you need to,” Wood said. “We got Jacob Rodriguez. He’s great at knocking the ball out. He’s probably as good an instinctive tackler that can make tackles and get the ball out of a ball carrier that I’ve seen personally… we’re going to be a team that emphasizes taking the ball away, drilling it, teaching it, teaching the angles, teaching the techniques, all those types of things, and at the end of the day, we just got to go out there and play the best defense we can, and hopefully the takeaways will come.”
Players that are standing out
Several big names have been talked about, with questions of who will be the most impactful. Others that haven’t been talked about as much have been praised by the coaching staff, especially in the past few weeks. Every player that this coaching staff brought in has a specific purpose to contribute to this team.
“Romello Height, playing our dog position, twitch explosion. He’s a very athletic guy. I think he’s going to be able to do a lot of things off the edge for us that are going to give him a chance to make a lot of plays,” Wood said. “David Bailey, opposite of him playing our field end position… David’s the same thing, just athletic, explosive, can bend, he’s going to be a match up problem for the guys that he’s going to go up against from an athletic standpoint.
Lee Hunter on the interior at tackle… he’s able to create mismatches and get knocked back at the point of attack, and then his pass rush, that’s one of the things he did so well in the spring, was able to knock guys back and really collapse the pocket… Skylar-Gill Howard, at our tackle position, is an explosive athlete. He’s a smart player, he’s got a chance to be a playmaker… Bryce Pollock, to me, is a complete player at cornerback. He’s a pretty big, physical player for the position that he’s playing. He’s an aggressive tackler in the run game… Cole (Wisniewski) is a big, fast, strong athlete, extremely distinctive. He can take the ball away in the air, great tackler, great angles to the ball.”
