Texas Tech’s Defense Is the Best in College Football At This

If you didn’t believe it earlier, it’s becoming impossible to deny: Texas Tech’s defense is on a historic run. Across multiple games, the Red Raiders have forced stops at a near‑unprecedented rate, holding opponents to microscopic scoring output per drive. In short, this unit is shutting games down.

Sources close to game charting indicate that Tech’s stop rate, that is, the percentage of opponent drives that result in no points, is hovering around 85.5%. Meanwhile, the defense is allowing an average of just 0.89 points per drive. If those figures hold through the season, they would constitute one of the most efficient defensive performances ever recorded.

To put it another way: in nearly 9 out of 10 opponent possessions, Tech is preventing drives from reaching the end zone or even chip‑shot field goals. And when teams do manage to scrape into scoring range, the Red Raider back line often holds firm with missed attempts or turnovers.

This is not just statistical noise. Texas Tech’s recent results back it up. In their dominant 35–11 road win over Houston, the Cougars were forced into errant throws, stalled drives, and a surprisingly weak third quarter. (Houston managed just 267 yards of total offense.) Earlier in the season, Tech’s defense blanked opponents deep into the second half in multiple games, allowing barely a whimper of a pushback.

Under defensive coordinator Shiel Wood, the unit has embraced a bend‑but‑don’t‑break identity with traffic at the line, disciplined gap control, and an aggressiveness in third-down and red-zone situations. In Big 12 play, where scoring is typically high and drives long, the ability to end possessions early is a program’s savior.

That said, context matters. Tech’s offense is so potent that many opponents feel pressured to abandon balanced attacks early; that can tilt defensive success metrics in favor of the unit. Also, sustaining 0.89 points per drive over an entire season is a herculean task that demands perfect execution, few bounces to the opposition, and minimal slippage for 12 games. So far, Tech looks willing to chase it.

For the Big 12 arms race, this changes the calculus. A defense that reliably shuts down opposing possessions gives Tech a margin others don’t have. It alleviates pressure on the offense to always outscore opponents and forces rival coordinators to game‑plan differently. If Texas Tech maintains anything close to these numbers, it will become a model for how to build defense in an era dominated by offense.

Keep an eye on this: if the narrative shifts from “Texas Tech has elite offense” to “Texas Tech wins because defense wins stops,” that’s the moment this season flips from “fun” to “legendary.”