(12-22-2012 08:56 PM)blunderbuss Wrote:  You call it air raid on HTC. Lost track of where I was trying to post my response to this....

"Welcome to the Air Raid offense. That's what you get: all offense and no defense. Same happened at Texas Tech and Houston. I preferred smash mouth football."

I guess no matter how many times I post it folks will still believe the myth. Coach Ruff and the Texas Tech Defense were good. Ruff took over the Defense of Texas Tech in 2007 in the games he coached they finished 1st in points allowed in the Big 12. In 2008 his first full year as DC they gave up 27.8 pts per game. Texas Tech finished ranked #12 and beat #1 Texas 39-33, #18 Kansas 63-21, #8 Oklahoma St 56-20. In 2009 Ruffs last year as DC as Texas Tech they gave up only 22.5pts per game or just 1pt less per game then what is recognized as one of the best ECU Defenses ever...the 2009 ECU Defense that had 3 future NFL lineman on the team 2 of which now have Super Bowl rings.

The Air Raid system is going to put more pressure on the Defense because they score quickly and if not they have super fast 3 and outs to put the Defense right back on the field. The idea that Texas Tech played no Defense and Ruff was a bad DC is one of the most often told and believed lies on ECU messageboards. As I point out over and over it is what makes the ECU Defense even less acceptable. Ruff was a solid DC and the Texas Tech Defense under him more then held their own in the score happy Big 12 with crazy man Mike Leach leading their Air Raid and focusing only on Offense. Ruff has disappointmend me big time in that he has never taken ownership of our awful Defense and he should pretty much fire Brian Mitchell and take over the Defense himself. Lincoln Riley and the Offensive coaches are more then capable of handling that side of the ball. We have a decent enough Special Teams coach now for Ruff to focus 100% of his coaching time on Defense and then go do his recruiting thing.
He can simply make his job easier by going out and hiring a solid DC. He brought unproven youth with him from Texas Tech because he had few options with the timing of his hiring. Year 4 there are no excuses. The only thing standing between us and 10 win seasons is our awful Defense and we have talent on that side of the ball but just piss poor scheming and coaching.