Five Most Disappointing Players of the Kingsbury Era

No. 4 – Derrick Willies

In the past two decades, Texas Tech football and star wide receivers have become synonymous.  But in the Kliff Kingsbury era, Tech has not had a dominant outside receiver since Eric Ward had 947 yards and eight touchdowns in 2013.

That is why Red Raider fans were thrilled to see JUCO All-American Derrick Willies sign with Tech in 2016.  Willies had offers from Arizona State, Oklahoma, BYU, Colorado, Georgia, Missouri, TCU, Washington State and Oklahoma State making him one of the most coveted JUCO recruits in the nation.

The thought was that pairing the freakishly athletic Willies with quarterback Pat Mahomes would form an unstoppable combo in the passing game.  But Willies failed to hold up his end of the bargain.

Willies played in only eight games in 2016 due to a mid-season injury racking up a mere 228 receiving yards and two touchdowns.  Perhaps his most memorable play from that season was a momentum-killing first half fumble against Texas that helped give the Longhorns life just as Texas Tech threatened to take a stranglehold on the game.

In 2017, Willies opened the season as a starting outside receiver but by the end of the season, he was not even in the regular rotation.  He caught only 18 passes for 304 yards and three touchdowns.  But 124 of those yards came in the season opener against Eastern Washington and his production declined over the course of the season.  In fact, he failed to register a catch in any of the season’s final six games.

Willies was surpassed on the depth chart by redshirt freshman T.J. Vasher and appeared to lose interest in contributing to the offense.  It was  disappointing career for a player that was one of only two 4-star recruits to sign with Texas Tech in 2016.  Fortunately though, the other was T.J. Vasher.