 "Photo: Karl Anderson")
Mike Leach had plenty of reasons to be satisfied with his defense Saturday night, such as five interceptions and a near shutout.
He also had all sorts of reasons to be content with his offense.
Tech (3-0) rushed for 180 yards and threw for 513 more in a 43-7 blowout against SMU (1-2) Saturday at Jones AT&T Stadium, in front of the most attended non-conference game in school history with a sold out crowd of 53,383.
However, numbers don't always tell the story, especially for Leach, who said he has grown tired of quarterback Graham Harrell "throwing the ball short and out of bounds all the time," while his receivers dropped too many passes and got rerouted too easily.
"We've got big heads and we're not tough enough to go out there and make plays," he said. "I don't know if it's big heads or we're scared. I'm kind of curious; are they scared or do they have big heads? Right now they're nothing special. And it's a byproduct of my coaching and other people's coaching. We're nothing special, not at quarterback or receiver. We can pretend we are."
After one of the toughest outings of his career in a 35-19 win at Nevada, where he completed 41 percent of his passes, Harrell looked to rebound against an SMU defense that ranked 109th nationally in total defense.
Harrell did just that.
He went 31-of-48 for 418 yards and five touchdowns against the Mustangs, with three scores and 164 yards via Michael Crabtree - who dropped a potnetial touchdown seconds before halftime.
Harrell also landed his name in the record books a few more times while leading the offense on Saturday. Harrell now holds school records for career passing touchdowns with 97 and career touchdowns responsible for, with 104, surpassing former quarterback Kliff Kingsbury for both records.
Despite all those numbers that seemed to get the offense loose, Leach still found a pressure point.
"What's deceiving about it is we're not doing our best," he said. "Just because you get big numbers doesn't mean that you measured up and did the best you could and competed with yourself and had a winning effort as far as what you can do. Those positions, we didn't play as well as we could play."
However, the positions that did overshadow the game were the backfield and the defensive secondary.
Baron Batch ran for 99 yards on 10 carries, including a 43-yard score midway through the first quarter, while gaining 71 yards receiving on five receptions. Shannon Woods added 132 all-purpose yards of his own.
"We're gonna make plays," Batch said. "If we're passing, and that's working, that's fine with me, but we can also run. We have play makers at every position."
Tech's 180 yards rushing were the most since running for 175 against Baylor in 2006, and Tech did not have more than 111 yards rushing last season.
Defensively, the Red Raiders' five interceptions were the most since 2005 against Nebraska.
Safety Daniel Charbonnet set a school record with three of those five interceptions, and he nearly had one more off a tipped ball that he could have returned for a touchdown. Safety Darcel McBath and corner Jamar Wall had one each.
Defensive coordinator Ruffin McNeill said Charbonnet was "Johnny on the spot," against the Mustangs.
Charbonnet's first interception came off the first play of the game - a deep overthrown ball by freshman quarterback Bo Levi Mitchell who threw five interceptions after throwing for five touchdowns against Texas State Sept. 7.
Charbonnet snatched his second interception out of the air when an SMU receiver mishandled what would have been an easy catch, and his final one came early on in the third quarter.
Charbonnet credited the interception to discovering Mitchell's tendency to go deep on the first play of the game, something SMU's quarterback had done in the two previous contests.
"(Mitchell has) probably never seen a (defensive line) like ours that rush him that well," he said. "Probably never seen linebackers that are physical with the receivers and stuff like that. I attribute it a lot to that."
Going back to the dropped passes, Leach said he would not mind the secondary shouldering the load for a receiving group that he thought had too many drops.
"I think some of them need to go both ways and play on offense," he said, "because they're damn sure catching it better than some of the guys on offense are. Five of the best catches of the game were all on defense."
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