Five most important Texas Tech defenders

The 2018 Texas Tech defense comes into the season with more hype than any Red Raider defense in almost a decade.  Here are the five most important players on what is expected to be the backbone of the team.

In the fourth year of defensive coordinator David Gibbs’ time in Lubbock, the notoriously blunt coach seems legitimately excited about his defense.  In fact, Gibbs may have already made more positive comments about this year’s defense to the media than he has in his first three seasons combined.

"“We actually play defense now, which, four years ago when I stepped foot in the door, we did not play defense,” Gibbs recently told Sports Radio 1340."

While that quote is not overly effusive in its praise of the Texas Tech defense, Red Raider fans know that those words represent a complete reversal in attitude for Gibbs who has not been shy about criticizing his unit to the media.    But now Gibbs is showing a more optimistic side even using the twitter hashtag “things have changed” when referencing his defense this offseason.

So why have things changed for Gibbs?  In short, he finally has legitimate Big 12 talent across his defense.  In fact, Texas Tech is the only team with three preseason all-Big 12 defenders and there is not a spot on the roster that is viewed as a deficiency.

And making this year’s defense even more salty is the fact that Tech returns ten of eleven starters from 2017 and 19 of 22 players from last year’s two-deep.  So let’s take a closer look a the five best defensive players on the team and why they are so critical to Texas Tech’s success this year.