Texas Tech football: The strengths of the Red Raiders’ 2020 signing class

Now that the bulk of the Texas Tech football program’s 2020 signing class has officially become Red Raiders, let’s look at the positions of strength in the latest haul for Matt Wells.

In 2017, high school and JUCO football recruits were able to sign their National Letters of Intent in December for the first time.  Since then, the early window has become the early Christmas present that college football fans get to unwrap but for the Texas Tech football program, there’s been more coal in their stockings than anything else.

Much of that has had to do with the uncertainty that defined the last two years of the Kliff Kingsbury era and the transition to the Matt Wells a year ago.  As a result, the early signing period has been a hindrance to the Red Raiders more than other programs.

Not knowing whether Kingsbury would be retained until after the 2017 and 2018 seasons meant that recruits were reluctant to commit to Tech early in the recruiting cycle.  And being as the new signing window pushed up the timeline for the recruiting process, players were apt to jump on offers from other programs with more certain futures to ensure that they had a spot.

With over 80% of the recruits in the nation signing in December, programs with uncertain coaching situations or with new coaches have been put at a severe disadvantage.  We saw that first-hand last fall when Wells signed just 13 players last December when most of the Big 12 had their entire class in the barn before Christmas.

This year, that’s not the case as the Red Raiders have officially signed 19 of the 20 players that entered the day as verbal commits.  The only one that did not sign was Portales, N.M. defensive end Philip Blidi.

The class currently sits at No. 44 in the nation and No. 7 in the Big 12 according to 247Sports.  As for the rest of the Big 12, Texas leads the way with the No. 9 class in the nation, which is impressive given that the Horns only have 16 players committed.

OU (No. 10 nationally) is right on UT’s heels while TCU (No. 30) is next with a class that features five four-star players.  After that, Neal Brown and West Virginia show up with the No. 36 class in the country.

Oklahoma State (No. 39) and Iowa State (No. 43) are the two schools just ahead of Tech while Kansas (No. 46), Kansas State (No. 48) and Baylor (No. 50) round out the conference standings.  Some might be surprised to see Baylor at the bottom of the rankings given that Matt Rhule’s team is coming off an 11-win season and an appearance in the Big 12 title game.

But don’t be fooled, there are some players in the Bears’ class.  Baylor is one of only four teams in the conference with at least two 4-star players in the 2020 class at this time but because they have just 15 players (the second-smallest class in the Big 12), their overall ranking is low.

When you look at the average rating per recruit, the classes of Tech and Baylor are a bit stronger.  Tech comes in sixth in the conference and Baylor seventh in that regard, which shows the overall quality of the classes from an individual recruit perspective rather than just a sheer numbers standpoint.

Most Red Raider fans are cautiously optimistic about this year’s class.  No one is scheduling any parades down Broadway at this time but seeing the class back in the 40s after ranking just 62nd and 72nd in the nation in the last two years respectively is a step in this right direction and a sign that the new coaching staff might be able to recruit better than the previous regime.

So let’s look at the players that Tech signed today and examine what the strengths of the class are.  As we do, we will start with a position group at which this class may be one of the best in Tech history on paper.