The Dallas-Ft. Worth Metroplex has become the Texas Tech football program’s top recruiting area so let’s take a look at the all-time Red Raider team of DFW players.
When I lived in Colorado, I once had a colleague travel to the Dallas-Ft. Worth area for the first time to take his daughter to a soccer tournament. When he came back he wanted to discuss with me only one aspect of his trip, the size of the high school football stadiums that he saw in Collin County. Certainly, high school football has become huge business in the Texas Tech football program’s primary recruiting area.
Across Texas, high schools are spending tens of millions of dollars on new high school stadiums, a sign of just how much school districts are prioritizing their football programs. For instance, last fall, McKinney ISD opened the nation’s most expensive stadium, a $70 million monstrosity that dwarfs most Division II stadiums.
That’s equal to the cost Allen ISD put into their new stadium which opened in 2014 at a price tag of $60 million. But the stadium had to be shut down for over a year due to structural issues that cost an extra $10 million.
Not wanting to miss out on the Collin Co. peeing contest, Frisco ISD partnered with Jerry Jones and the Dallas Cowboys to help finance the Star in Frisco. After contributing $30 million to the construction cost of the Dallas Cowboys’ new corporate headquarters, Frisco schools now call the 12,000-seat Ford Center home. This is the same venue in which Tech hosted the 2019 spring scrimmage.
The district then came under substantial fire when in 2017 it began charging middle school students a $100 fee and high school students a $200 fee to play sports. Many thought that idea to be preposterous given the money the district had given to have access to the Ford Center and this summer, FISD announced that it will no longer charge an athletics fee.
Though that high school football arms race is at its most absurd in the affluent suburbs north of Dallas, across the Metroplex from Southlake to Mesquite to Cedar Hill to Ft. Worth, the stakes in high school football have never been greater.
The area has long been one of the most fertile grounds in the nation for developing Division-I talent. Legendary DFW programs like Allen, Euless Trinity, Southlake Carroll, Highland Park, Aledo, and so many more make the Metroplex arguably the most competitive high school football region in the nation.
As you might expect, some legendary football players can trace their roots back to the DFW area. Legendary running back Doak Walker (after whom the award for the top college running back in the nation is named) starred at Highland Park High School before going to SMU. Though he played only six years in the NFL, he was inducted into the Hall of Fame in 1986.
Another Hall of Famer from Highland Park is quarterback Bobby Lane, a Texas alum. Then there is Hall of Fame wide receiver Tim Brown, who played his high school football at Woodrow Wilson before going on to Notre Dame where he would win the 1987 Heisman Trophy.
Current NFL stars from the Metroplex include Denver outside linebacker Von Miller (DeSoto), Detroit Lions’ QB Matthew Stafford (Highland Park), and, Cleveland Browns’ defensive end Myles Garrett (Arlington).
That helps illustrate why Texas Tech has dedicated so much of its resources to the DFW area. On this year’s roster, 27 of the 108 (25%) players listed on the Red Raider football roster are from the Metroplex.
So as you might expect, some of the greatest names to ever grace the Texas Tech football program call Dallas – Ft. Worth home. So let’s take a look at the all-time DFW Red Raider team.