Now that the 2019 season is over, our focus is going to turn to how the Texas Tech football team can improve the roster and the JUCO and grad transfer markets are going to be where plenty of action happens.
After a 4-8 season, there’s no denying that the Texas Tech football team is in need of a significant talent infusion. In fact, it would be tough to find any position group on the roster that we feel certain will be elite in 2020.
That’s why the next two months will be critical as Matt Wells and his staff look to finish out what is already a promising recruiting class. After the 2019 class finished just 62nd nationally and 8th in the Big 12, the current crop of players committed to the Red Raiders is ranked No. 39 in the country and No. 4 in the Big 12 by 247Sports.
Though Wells certainly wishes his team was preparing for a bowl game, he is going to benefit by having plenty of time to devote to his efforts in acquiring talent in December ahead of the early signing period, which arrives on the 18th of this month. Of course, that’s a far different situation than he faced last year at this time.
When he was hired at Texas Tech, the former Utah State head coach was given less than three weeks to get his staff in place and begin to try to salvage any semblance of a class before the early window opened. That’s why, in a year when most Big 12 schools signed their entire class in December, only eleven of the 19 players that would eventually comprise last year’s haul were officially inked in the early period.
This year, that number should rise but what will not change is that the work will continue for this staff long after December has come and gone. That’s because we can expect the JUCO and grad transfer ranks to play a huge role in the 2020 class, just as it did in Wells’ first class.
Last year, three JUCO players and five grad transfers came to Lubbock with only TE Travis Koontz signing early. At this point of the year, many JUCO players still do not know if they will qualify academically because their grades aren’t going to be posted until right around the time that the early signing period arrives.
Meanwhile, the bulk of the players that will eventually find their way to the grad transfer portal likely won’t make their decisions until after this semester while some may not even choose to transfer until after the spring practice sessions have concluded and the depth chart begins to take shape.
For instance, corner Zech McPhearson did not announce his intention to leave Penn State for Texas Tech until April, a couple of weeks after Tech’s spring football session had concluded. Then there was safety Ja’Marcus Ingragram who arrived from Utah State in August after fall camp had already begun.
Thus, the roster that we see after the traditional signing day in February and even the one that participates in the spring game will not likely be the final group that takes the field for the Red Raiders this fall. In 2019, Tech got nice production out of players like McPhearson, RB Armand Shyne, and WR R.J. Turner, all of who were added via the grad transfer portal.
But there is a risk in leaning heavily on JUCO and grad transfers. Often, JUCO players take at least a year to develop into quality players at the Big 12 level as they often come from programs that do not have adequate weight training facilities or nutrition programs, thus putting them behind in terms of their physical development.
As for grad transfers, most of them have significant injury histories, as was the case with Shyne and Rambo while others have yet to prove capable of holding down a starting spot at their previous school, as was the case with McPhearson. Thus, gambling on them to give you a full season of healthy football or to be an upgrade in talent is no certainty.
But that’s what a program like Texas Tech has to do to try to bring its overall talent up to a level that can at least rival most of their conference brethren. With how poorly this program has recruited in recent years, that’s a risk Wells feels is not only necessary but mandatory.
So let’s take a look at where the recruiting class sits right now in terms of numbers and see what areas of the roster could use an infusion of JUCO and grad transfer talent. These are the positions that most need some solidifying from the ranks of the less traditional methods of talent acquisition.