Texas Tech football needs Lonzell Gilmore to finally produce

The Texas Tech football program needs Lonzell Gilmore to finally give the team some production in his senior season.

College football is built on calculated gambles. That’s because when recruiting high school players, coaches have to figure out who has the potential to develop both physically and mentally into a quality college athlete. This year, the Texas Tech football team could really use a spark from a player that they took a chance on four years ago.

Senior defensive end Lonzell Gilmore has tantalized Red Raider fans since almost the moment he stepped foot on campus given his incredible athleticism. A 3-star prospect in 2015, he picked Tech over offers from Nebraska, Baylor, Kansas State and Illinois among others.

Despite that impressive offer list, at 6-foot-3, 217-pounds when he signed, the Spring, TX native was considered a project by many recruiting experts who were unsure if he would ever gain enough weight to be a legitimate Big 12 defensive end. The plan for Gilmore was to spend the majority of his time during his first season on campus putting weight on his lanky frame but that process took far longer than expected, keeping him from contributing early in his career.

Though he has now grown to 280 pounds, he has yet to provide the type of production that had been expected of a player with his frame, unusually long arms and quick-twitch ability. After playing mostly on special teams or in a reserve capacity in 2016, Gilmore had just six tackles and a sack.

In 2017, the Red Raiders looked to Gilmore to be a larger part of the defensive line rotation as he began the year in a starting role. But a knee injury cut his season to just seven games during which he made just ten tackles and had no sacks.

Last season, he returned to see action in all 12 games but he had just nine tackles a 0.5 sacks. Needless to say, most expected more out of Gilmore by this point in his career than 25 tackles and 1.5 sacks.

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Perhaps the new coaching staff will be able to finally unlock his potential. After all, new defensive coordinator Keith Patterson has a reputation for fielding defenses that get to the QB.

In 2015, Patterson’s Arizona State defense led the nation with 3.54 sacks per game. That season, five Sun Devils recorded at least four sacks.

Likewise, in 2011 while DC at Pittsburgh, Patterson saw his defense register 3.3 sacks per game, third in the nation. Last year, Tech averaged just 2.3, which was actually up from 2017’s 1.4.

Much of the responsibility for helping Gilmore improve will fall upon new defensive line coach Paul Randolph, who was at Memphis for the last three years and worked under Patterson at Arizona State. During his three years as a coach with the Sun Devils, Randolph coached five All-Pac 12 defensive linemen.

Patterson and Rudolph need Gilmore to become more than just a rotational player this fall. They need him to become a real factor for the first time in his career.

That’s because there is only one defensive end on the roster with more than two career sacks, junior Eli Howard who has 9.0. If Patterson’s defense is truly going to become what he envisions, he needs more than one player capable of getting to the QB off the edge.

Sophomore Nelson Mbanasor, who like Gilmore is a 280-pound defensive end, will get plenty of opportunities to prove that he is ready to be a full-time player this fall. But the rest of the ends on the roster, Houston Miller, Quentin Yontz, Noah Jones and Malik Essilfie are yet to contribute in their careers and are not expected to be true difference-makers in 2019.

Of course, Tech could get lucky with one of the 2019 true freshmen ends. Four star signee Gilbert Ibeneme and 3-star signee Tony Bradford Jr. are talented players but to expect either to contribute significantly in their first fall on campus is likely asking too much.

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It would seem far more likely for the Red Raiders to see Gilmore make a difference in his final season as a Red Raider. He is the perfect size to play end in Patterson’s 3-man defensive line and given that the new scheme will be more of an attacking defense, there’s reason to believe that this could finally be the year that this long-time project finally becomes an effective pass rusher.

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