Texas Tech Football: James Willis and Why Defense Matters

“Offense Sells Tickets . . . Defense Wins Championships”

These are words that should cause Red Raider football fans to pause for reflective purposes.   

Mike Leach’s brilliant 10 year run as the head coach at Texas Tech featured offense, and lots of it.  In fact, under the passing obsessed pirate, the Red Raiders have ranked Top 10  in total offense every year since 2003.

Additionally,  Texas Tech did indeed sell tickets under Leach’s watch.

When Leach took over at Tech in 2000, the Red Raiders were averaging home attendance in the neighborhood of 43,000 per game at Jones Stadium.

By the time Leach was removed from the program in 2009, Texas Tech attendance averaged over 50,000 screaming fans at home games.

But, alas, for all of Mike Leach’s impressive achievements, including building Texas Tech football into a nationally recognized program, there were no championships.

With the exception of the three way tie for the Big 12 South title in 2008, there were no divisional championships, no conference championships, no BCS bowl bids, and no National titles.

Many football savvy individuals will state vehemently that Tech did not win championships because Leach didn’t care about defense.

Well, maybe in this case the nay Sayers are correct. . .

Texas Tech’s defense over the past several years has been nothing short of underwhelming. . .

In terms of defensive points allowed per game, the Red Raiders have averaged a dismal national ranking of 49^th since 2003.

This includes the low mark of being 83^rd overall in 2003 (allowing 35.7 points per game) and the high water mark of 21^st in 2005 (allowing 19.4 points per game).

Solid arguments can be made that Tech had improved on defense towards the end of Leach’s tenure, indeed, concrete evidence is found in 2009’s 41^st points allowed ranking equaling only 21.8 points per game.

Still, as a Tech fan you always had to hope that the Red Raiders would score last, leaving the defense on the sideline and the offense in control of the destiny of the game.

Enter Tommy Tuberville.

Obviously everything has changed in Lubbock.  Leach is gone.  Tuberville is in town and talking defense, a running game and yes, championships.

Tuberville’s defensive pedigree is impressive.  He played defensive end and linebacker at Arkansas State and has served as defensive coordinator at both Miami (FL) and Texas A&M.

During his 10 year tenure as the head coach at Auburn Tuberville’s defenses ranked among the best in the nation.

From 2003–2008 the Tigers defense ranked an average of seventh overall in fewest points allowed. Auburn’s average points allowed per game for this period were a stunning figure of 15.166.

Statistically speaking, the high mark for Auburn during this span was 2004 when the Tigers went undefeated and ranked number one nationally in points allowed per game with only 11.2.  The highest average allowed per game during this period when the Tigers allowed 18 points per game but were still ranked a lofty 15^th in the nation in this defensive category.

Therefore, nobody should be surprised that Texas Tech fans and opponents are respectively anticipating and dreading a Red Raider squad that can play defense.

So, who did Tuberville select to entrust his defensive revival at Texas Tech?

Post Tuberville’s hiring talk swirled about who would take over Leach’s offense, but much less attention was paid to the selection of the man entrusted with converting an offensively greedy fan base to one satisfied with gobbling up a big healthy helping of the “D”.

Does the Red Raider nation even know that it has been starved of the sweet fruit of defensive football? 

Or has it simply been too long, a great people famished from a lack of aggressive tackling, ravenous for sacks, hungry for containment ultimately suffering from defensive malnutrition?

Are Red Raider fans therapeutically unable to trust the defense and/or fully accept its importance?

Who is James Willis and What is He doing with your Defense?  

And, so, it was James Willis who Coach Tuberville anointed as the man who would bring defense back to the South Plains.

Willis was born in 1972 in Huntsville Alabama and is a graduate of J.O. Johnson High School where he played linebacker and was named a Parade All-American.

James Willis was recruited by and played linebacker under Pat Dye at Auburn from 1990–92 where he recorded 344 tackles. 

He was a first team All-SEC selection in 1992, SEC Co-Defensive freshman of the year in 1990 and he was voted to Auburn’s All Decade team for the 1990’s.

Willis was the 119^th overall pick in the 1993 NFL being selected by the Green Bay Packers in the fifth Round.

He spent seven seasons in the NFL and one season in the XFL.  After two years at Green Bay he moved to Philadelphia where he started from 1995–1998 for the Eagles. 

In 1999 Willis played his final NFL season in Seattle with the Seahawks.

His final year as a player was spent back home in Alabama with the XFL’s Birmingham Thunderbolts where he was named the league’s defensive MVP.

With his professional career over, Willis returned to Auburn to finish his degree.  During this time he first served as a student assistant (2001 – 02) and then a defensive graduate assistant (2003) under then defensive coordinator Gene Chizik (now the head coach at Auburn).

Next Willis moved on to coach the linebackers at Rhode Island in 2004 and then served in the same capacity at Temple in 2005.

He reunited with Tuberville at Auburn from 2006 – 2008 where he served as linebackers coach. 

While back at Auburn Willis served first under defensive coordinator Will Muschamp (now the “coach in waiting” at Texas) and then Paul Rhoads (now the coach at Iowa State). 

When Tommy Tuberville left Auburn after the 2008 season Willis was retained by incoming coach Gene Chizik but instead chose to accept an offer to join Nick Saban and the Alabama Crimson Tide where he was named associate head coach and inside linebackers coach.

During the time in which Willis lead the linebacker corps at Auburn and Alabama (2006 – 2009) the combined defenses averaged a number 7 ranking in points allowed per game with a stunning average of 14.9 points per game for the four seasons cumulatively.

James Willis was named the defensive coordinator at Texas Tech on January 13, 2010.

Willis inherits a Tech defense devoid of Brandon Sharpe who has left with his 15 sacks for the NFL’s Dallas Cowboys.  Also gone is Daniel Howard who accounted for eight sacks in 2009.

The Red Raiders do return six of its top eight tacklers on defense who Willis plans to move around to adjust for his new defensive scheme. 

The switch from a 4-3 to a 3-4 set will require more quickness than Tech has shown in the past but Tuberville has stated that Tech will rotate 25 defensive players in and out which is seven more than in the past. 

Tuberville also noted that the fourth quarter has been the period when previous Tech defenses have given up the most points and he claims that conditioning will remedy this glaring deficiency.

Willis has said that the new Tech offense will “fly around and put pressure on the quarterback” and that his defensive players will be “students of the game.”

As a student himself of Nick Saban and Will Muschamp Tech fans can expect Willis to convert the Red Raider defensive unit into a suffocating, attacking squad which will be a welcome change in Lubbock and a scary proposition for opposing offenses.

During a short interview this spring Willis told the story of how when he first came to Lubbock he was greeted with several people saying “Welcome Home Coach Willis.”

He mused that he didn’t fully understand this at first but then realized that Red Raiders welcomed him “home” because Lubbock and Texas Tech are the kind of places that once you are there for a while everyone is so welcoming and friendly that it does indeed feel as if you are “home”.

What James Willis will ultimately mean to Texas Tech football is yet to be seen.

However, if he can utilize his 20 plus years of defensive experience to revive the fortunes of the Red Raider defense and therefore the fortunes and championship dreams of Red Raider football, Texas Tech fans will hope that he and his family will call Lubbock their home for many seasons to come.