Much has been said and written about the explosive Texas Tech offense, but what can we expect from the Red Raiders’ defense and what opportunities does it present ASU?

It’s hard to make a lot of assumptions about a team after only one game, but after looking at the NAU game film, ASU offensive coordinator Chip Lindsey was happy with the early results, especially at the end.

“The thing I was really most proud of was scoring the last seven drives,” he said. “We got some points which is what we want. We want touchdowns instead of field goals but (I’m) really pleased with the momentum we got coming out of the game.”

After opening with a win last Saturday against FCS opponent NAU, the Sun Devils take a dramatic step up in competition in the form of Texas Tech which runs a unique defense that can take multiple forms and look differently from snap to snap.

The Red Raiders’ defense, according to our earlier piece with RedRaidersSports.com editor Will McKay, is a base 4-3 but utilizes a stand-up defensive end as a rush end that often makes it look like a 3-4 scheme.

In the defensive backfield they run a mix of coverages, predominantly Cover 3 and Cover 4, and tend to be aggressive with the ball in the air.

With those types of coverages with defensive backs playing deep and keeping things in front of them, redshirt senior wide receiver Tim White knows the long ball, a favorite part of his game, will be hard to come by.

“I love to go deep without a doubt,” White said. “But I know our coaches are going to put us in a great position and I know (Texas Tech is) watching film just like us and they’re going to coming down on a lot of things, a lot of quick things.”

Texas Tech’s front-seven, anchored by transfers nose tackle Ondre Pipkins from Michigan and defensive end Kolin Hill from Notre Dame will provide a stiff test for ASU’s offensive line which is still meshing together.

Redshirt senior tight end Kody Kohl sees some matchup advantages against Texas Tech’s linebackers and thinks he can exploit them.

“Every game there’s advantages,” he said. “Teams don’t expect me to be fast and I’m faster than they expect so then I end up winning routes and things like that.”

One thing that also stood out to White, in particular, is the way the Red Raiders rally to the football, especially on running plays. Texas Tech doesn’t blitz much that is an important facet of their defense winning downs.

“They hustle to the ball well,” White said. “They just like to play, they play with intensity…it’s going to be fun.”

The Red Raiders’ defense was among the nation’s worst last season but Lindsey said he has seen them take steps forward since 2015.

“I think they’re improved,” Lindsey said. “(Defensive coordinator David) Gibbs does a great job…We’re gonna have to really play well and really execute in order to have an opportunity to score some points.”

Below, we’ll take a look at a set of three plays that show the ways ASU may be able to exploit Texas Tech’s defense.

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This first clip demonstrates a way in which Texas Tech’s over aggressiveness in the secondary can lead to mistakes that ASU can exploit.

In the first shot, Oklahoma State (in white) is in trips to the top of the screen with the blue arrows representing the receivers’ routes. The Red Raiders are in man-to-man coverage with safeties sitting over the top.

After the snap, the innermost receiver (purple circle) gets a clean release and has a step on his defender. The top safety (red circle) crashes hard on the middle receiver’s in-breaking route (blue arrow) meaning there is no safety help over the top for the inside DB.

The inner receiver, having gotten off free at the line, breaks out towards the back pylon. Having a step on the defender and with the defender on the inside, there is virtually no way the defender can make a play on the ball and Oklahoma State scores a touchdown.

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In this cut, we see how, once again, Texas Tech’s aggression can be used against them, this time in the run game.

The play starts with the outside receiver coming in motion to the formation’s left. At the last second, Texas Tech’s LBs shift in the direction of the motion to defend any play to the shifting wide receiver.

However, the shift was a decoy and Texas (in the orange, red arrows) hand the ball off to the offense’s right while the defense (blue arrows) has all jumped towards the other side. This leaves a wide running lane for the running back.

Now Texas has three lead blockers ahead of its running back. This play ends with the running back being run down after a long gain but easily could have been a longer gain or touchdown.

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In this final sequence, misdirection and trickery can be seen one last time taking advantage of Texas Tech’s aggressiveness.

At the start of the play, TCU’s (in white) QB hands off to the running back and the defense bites down hard on the run to the offense’s left.

Surprise! The running back flips the ball to the wide receiver coming back to the offense’s right. The entire Tech defense has attacked the initial run.

Finally, the receiver fires a pass to the slot receiver and, with some good touch to the back shoulder, completes it for a big gain.

All in all, Texas Tech’s defense is relatively vanilla in that there are no exotic blitz schemes and their coverages are pretty simple.

Combined with their aggressive tendencies, there are multiple ways the Sun Devils can attack the Red Raiders’ defense. On Saturday we’ll see how effective ASU will be with the schemes that it will execute and exploit the opportunities Texas Tech will present.