Texas Tech football: Game balls for McCann, Wesley, Brooks vs. UT

Defensive tackle Nick McCann

Ten games into the season, it is rare for a new face to emerge as an impact player but that is what sophomore defensive tackle Nick McCann did against Texas.  His six tackles were a career-high doubling his previous high of three which came against Iowa State.

McCann also got in on the pass rush frenzy registering his first career sack.  It was by far the most active the 6-foot-2, 310-pounder has been as a Red Raider.

A three-star prospect out of high school, he was the No. 9 overall player in Arkansas and selected Texas Tech over offers from Baylor, Kansas, Oklahoma State, Texas and SMU.  But he redshirted in 2016 despite the awful state of the Red Raider defense which was the worst statistical defense in the nation.

Last year, he appeared on only four games and did not see the field in the final six games.  He registered only four tackles as a redshirt freshman who was buried on the depth chart.

But this year, he has been a key member of the defensive line rotation playing in every game but the West Virginia contest.  He has had a tackle in every game that he’s appeared in registering multiple stops in six.

But he’s never had the type of impact that he did Saturday night.  And it was needed as starting defensive tackle Joe Wallace was dinged up during the game forcing McCann to play more snaps that usual.

McCann is a player that the coaching staff has been high on and with ten tackles in his last three games, it looks like he is starting to come into his own.  Perhaps his work against the Longhorns was a preview of what is to come.