Recruiting Retrospective: The 2012 Texas Tech signing class was a bust

Now that the members 2012 college football recruiting class have graduated (for the most part) we can look back at what that group brought to Texas Tech football. ESPN.com recently ranked the 2012 Big 12 recruiting classes based on what each accomplished over the past four years and for Texas Tech, the results were disappointing.

The final recruiting class of former head coach Tommy Tuberville was ranked 20^th nationally on signing day of 2012. However, due to a number of high profile recruits that did not pan out, that Texas Tech recruiting class failed to meet expectations and has been ranked 8^th in the Big 12 by ESPN.

The 2012 recruiting class set the Red Raider football program back due to the fact that many of the top rated recruits in the class did not contribute anything at all on the field. The group that should have been the core of the 2014 and 2015 seasons saw far too much attrition and left new head coach Kliff Kingsbury with no choice but to rely upon underclassmen to play significant roles.

Let’s start by looking at the biggest busts in the class. No recruit in the 2012 class was more disappointing than Waco, TX defensive lineman Michael Starts.

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The 4-star prospect chose Texas Tech over a number of high profile schools including Texas. Most schools wanted starts to play offensive line but Texas Tech recruited him to play defense, which he preferred.

Unfortunately, Starts left the program after one year due to his dissatisfaction with the expectations of the new coaching staff in 2013. After spending a year playing junior college football, Starts returned to Lubbock and re-enrolled at Texas Tech but was not allowed back on the football team.

Texas Tech was counting on Starts to be the anchor of the defensive line during his career. When he failed to contribute the depth along the defensive front took a major hit as younger and less talented players were forced to play larger roles.

Another player from the 2012 recruiting class whose failure to produce set the program back is wide receiver Dominick Wheeler. The 4-star wide receiver from Crockett, Texas was supposed to be the next star wide receiver in the long line of prolific pass catchers at Texas Tech.

However, Wheeler never made an impact for the Red Raiders. The former No. 26 ranked player in Texas played in only one game for Texas Tech before leaving the program.

Wheeler was supposed to be the type of big and fast receiver that Texas Tech has been lacking. His failure to produce is one of the reasons that the Red Raiders have struggled at outside receiver in the past two years.

Without Wheeler’s production, Texas Tech has had to rely upon small wide receivers that have been inconsistent at best. Lacking a true star on the outside has been a problem for the Texas Tech offense and as a result the coaching staff has put an emphasis on recruiting a large number of tall receivers in the hopes that at least one will be able to turn into the lead dog Wheeler was supposed to be.

Then there is the disappointing career of corner La’Darius Newbold. The 3-star recruit from Lancaster, TX was one of the most prized signees of the 2012 class.

At 6-foot-0, Newbold had the size that Texas Tech desperately wanted in a corner. It was expected that he would assume the role of top corner but the light never came on.

By the time Newbold was a junior, he was buried so deep on the depth chart that he was an afterthought. Texas Tech was forced to rely on true freshmen corners like Nigel Bethell II and Tevin Madison to play right away in 2013 because Newbold simply did not turn out to be the player he was expected to be.

Another blow to the program was the unfortunate case of defensive tackle J.J. Lollar. The 3-star recruit from College Station, TX possessed incredible strength squatting 780 pounds in high school.

Unfortunately, a serious eye injury suffered before he arrived on campus ended Lollar’s career. Another defensive lineman that Texas Tech was counting on to provide quality at a much-needed position did not contribute on the field. As a result, Texas Tech was forced to recruit a large number of JUCO defensive linemen to act as stopgaps, a strategy that did not work well.

There were a few successes from the 2012 class. Center Jared Kaster, linebackers Micah Awe and Will Smith, wide receiver Reginald Davis, JUCO offensive tackle Rashad Fortenberry, safety Keenon Ward and JUCO corner Bruce Jones were all players that started multiple years for Texas Tech.

But of the 27 signees in that class, almost half never made a significant impact for Texas Tech. According to ESPN.com, only four of the 2012 high school signees turned into multi-year starters.

When Kliff Kingsbury took over the Texas Tech football program in 2013, he inherited a roster thin on talent due to the failures of the Tuberville staff’s recruiting efforts. It is important to keep this in mind as we watch Kingsbury attempt to rebuild the football program.

Next: Clark and Washington impress at Senior Bowl

The failures of one recruiting class can have long-lasting effects on a football program, especially when a class as bad as the 2012 Texas Tech recruiting class eats away at a program’s depth and talent.

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