Texas Tech football: Matt Wells tries to bridge roster gap with grad transfers

New Texas Tech football head coach Matt Wells is attempting to bridge the talent gap in his roster with a number of graduate transfers, a tactic that is less than ideal but which might pay off in the short term.

The further we get from the Kliff Kingsbury era, the more it is becoming apparent that the former Texas Tech football head coach severely bungled the management of his program’s roster.  As a result, his successor, Matt Wells is having to figure out how to plug the holes in his roster and to do so, he is turning to the college football version of free-agency; the graduate transfer portal.

To understand the problem Wells has inherited, we must look no further than the last three recruiting classes Kingsbury signed.  Beginning with the 2016 class, which should comprise the majority of the 2019 two-deep, we will find that each of Kingsbury’s final three classes was massively flawed.

For starters, Kingsbury and his staff virtually ignored high school defensive players, despite the fact that under Kingsbury’s watch, the program suffered through two seasons with one of the two lowest-ranked defenses in the nation (2015-16).  Yet somehow, of the 66 players to sign with Tech in the 2016-18 classes, only 17 were high school defensive players.

In 2016, Tech’s class was fairly balanced with 12 of the 25 signees playing on the defensive side of the ball.  However, eleven of the players in that class (regardless of the side of the ball) did not finish their careers as Red Raiders and four of the high school defensive signees (Joseph Wallace, Johnathan Picone, Ivory Jackson, Kevin Moore) are no longer with the program.

But despite the fact that the program was still desperate for an infusion of defensive talent, Kingsbury was even more egregious with his neglect of the defense in 2017.  That year, only five of the 19 players Texas Tech signed were high school products that played defense.  (This does not include walk-ons.)

Even worse, the program added only one defensive lineman, Nelson Mbanasor, who had decided to leave the program last fall only changing his mind after Wells was hired.   Had the former 3-star signee left Lubbock, the outlook at defensive end in 2019 would have been as bleak as at any time in recent memory…which is saying quite a bit.

And in Kingsbury’s final class, his confounding roster mismanagement continued.  Only four of the 17 signees in 2018 played defensive with two being linebackers and two being defensive linemen.

What’s more, a significant number of players Kingsbury signed throughout his tenure have been dismissed from the program (either by the previous coaching staff or the current one). As a result, Wells is facing a tremendous uphill battle in regards to putting together a roster deep enough to compete in the Big 12.

Tech should have plenty of top-end talent on the field this fall, especially on offense.  But as we saw last season, a few key injuries can cripple a team that lacks sufficient depth.  And because Wells had little time to try to reinforce his roster via high school prospects in the 2019 class, he’s been forced to take on a large number of graduate transfers in the hopes that they can be solid members of the two-deep rotation.

In recent years, Tech has received moderate production from graduate transfers such as LB’s Luke Stice and V.J. Fehoko, OT Emeka Okafor, DT Preston Gordon, S John Bonney and others.  Still, none of the grad transfers to come to Lubbock have proven to be difference-makers.

However, at times, Tech has had to rely on such players to play significant snaps, as was the case with Bonney in 2018 who had to play immediately last fall when Jah’Shawn Johnson missed the first three games of the season with a shoulder injury.  Thus, it is safe to assume that some of the grad transfers that Matt Wells has brought on board will also be asked to provide meaningful snaps this year.   So let’s get to know these new Red Raiders, because despite the fact that they will be with the program for less than a full calendar year, they may be critical in determining what type of start Wells and his staff get off to.