New Texas Tech DL Coach Terrance Jamison Faces Huge Task In 2017

The Texas Tech Red Raiders have a new defensive line coach for 2017, Terrance Jamison. He inherits a woefully inexperienced group that will need superb coaching if the Red Raider defense is to improve this fall.

In the world of college athletics, no force is more disruptive than inconsistency. Unfortunately, Terrance Jamison’s 2017 Red Raider defensive line has been left frighteningly devoid of experience and dangerously long on inexperience due to yearly turnover on the defensive coaching staff.

Jamison is Texas Tech’s fourth defensive line coach in the Kliff Kingsbury era following Kevin Patrick (2016), Mike Smith (2015) and John Scott Jr. (2013-14) . He arrives after spending three years coaching the defensive line at Florida Atlantic. In addition, he has also served as an assistant coach at Wisconsin and California.

The former Wisconsin defensive lineman has two nice bullet points on his resume. Most notably is the fact that in 2015, his defensive line helped Florida Atlantic set a school record with 35 sacks. He also helped groom former Wisconsin great and NFL all-pro defensive end J.J. Watt in 2008 when Jamison was a student assistant on the Badgers’ staff.

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In all, the new leader of the defensive line has eight years as a college assistant but 2017 looks to be the biggest challenge of his career. There does not appear to be a J.J. Watt on this year’s Red Raider roster. In fact, there doesn’t even appear to be a player the caliber of 2016 Conference USA Defensive Player of the Year Trey Hendrickson, who racked up 27 sacks under Terrance Jamison’s tutelage from 2014-16.

Instead, Jamison will have to make due with a unit that features only three seniors. As a result, he will have to find a way to get significant contributions from a number of the six freshmen and four sophomores under his guidance.

What’s more, the few players with any game experience at the Big 12 level have had almost no success in getting to the quarterback. Only four defensive linemen on the team recorded a sack last season and none did more than once. Of the 14 team sacks the Red Raiders recorded last year, only five came from the defensive line.

Because of the turnover on the defensive coaching staff over the last four seasons (which includes three different defensive coordinators), the Red Raiders have struggled to recruit and develop effective pass rushers. However, Texas Tech has added nine recruits to the defensive line in the past two recruiting class.

But Jamison does not have the luxury of allowing these youngsters to develop before throwing them into action. He will have to do the best coaching job of his career and turn potential into results along the defensive front.

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Texas Tech’s defense has ranked in the bottom two overall in the nation in each of the past two seasons. If that trend is going to come to an end this year, Terrance Jamison and his unproven defensive line will have to be one of the biggest surprises in the Big 12.

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