Texas Tech football: All-time West Texas Red Raider team
The West Texas roster is surprisingly balanced and deep
The only position group on this roster that would give some a reason to be concerned is the defensive line, which is not as dominant or as deep as the d-lines of all-time Texas Tech teams from other areas. But the remainder of the roster is rock solid and stacks up well.
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I was a bit surprised just how good the West Texas roster turned out to be. That’s because I anticipated far more of the best local products to have come from the first half of the program’s existence when a team’s recruiting was done primarily in its geographic area of influence.
However, the 1970s-90s were a golden era for West Texas recruits at Tech with the majority of this roster coming from that era. That is not surprising given how Spike Dykes prioritized local talent.
It is interesting though to see how the West Texas recruits have made less of an impact in the “Air Raid” era. While a handful of players from that time went on to be all-time greats in the program, outside of the quarterbacks, the local products have not had as large of a role in the program over the last two decades.
Much of that is attributed to the expansion of Tech’s recruiting efforts to encompass all of Texas as well as the surrounding states. And the three coaching staffs since the Dykes era have placed so little of an emphasis on West Texas talent that many excellent local players have gone elsewhere only to haunt the Red Raiders.
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New head coach Matt Wells has said that he will make West Texas a priority and thus far, he’s proven good on that word. In the 2019 recruiting class, he brought in three local products and already in the class of 2020, he’s secured commitments from three more. Hopefully, that will signal a return to the days when being a Red Raider football player was the dream of every West Texas child and local talent was the backbone of the program.