Texas Tech football: 5 best individual performances of 2019
Though the 2019 Texas Tech football season was rather disappointing, there were some individual performances along the way that are worth remembering.
When looking back at the Texas Tech football team’s 4-8 2019 season, it’s hard not to be completely pessimistic. That’s because this was a year that did nothing but further the program’s downward spiral despite the presence of a new coaching regime.
That’s why a huge portion of the fan base left this year thinking, “We fired Kliff Kingsbury for this?” While I’m not in that camp, I believe it was obvious that Kingsbury wasn’t going to get this program on track, I do admit that when I look at this year and all the close calls, I can’t help but grow frustrated.
As the season started to get away from us, a debate within the fan base about whether or not there was enough talent on this roster to win in the Big 12 began to arise among the fan base. That’s an area where those of us in the middle continue to struggle to pick sides.
On one hand, there was enough talent on this team for Tech to be in four one-score games, including one that went to double-OT against the Big 12 runner-up, Baylor. All four of those games could have gone Tech’s way had one or two plays turned out differently.
But isn’t that the sign of how much talent a team has? Don’t the talented teams make the plays when the game is up for grabs?
The more I ruminate on this issue, I can’t help but think about how many players on this year’s Red Raider roster would have been coveted by other Big 12 programs. If Tech decided to disband the football program and every player on the roster was put in a draft for the other teams in the league to select, how many would be picked as starters for teams other than Kansas and West Virginia?
For sure, Jordyn Brooks could have started for every team in this conference. The second-team All-American was the best player defensive player in the Big 12 but didn’t get the hype he deserved because he played on an irrelevant team.
It is also fair to believe that right guard Jack Anderson would be a player that most teams would love to plug into their offensive line. He began the year as a preseason first-team All-Big 12 selections but injuries cost him nine games.
Perhaps teams with a need at one of the tackle spots would have been happy to add Travis Bruffy or Terence Steele to their front five. The same might be said for sophomore center Dawson Deaton.
Who else? Though Jett Duffey was solid, would any team in the Big 12 have jumped at the chance to put him in the starting lineup? No.
We all loved what we saw from SaRodorick Thompson as a redshirt freshman but which teams in the league would fall all over themselves to have a player that had 766 yards and 12 scores this year? I’m as high on his future as any player on this roster but he’s still nowhere near being an All-Big 12 caliber of player at this time.
Most interesting, would any team in the Big 12, Kansas included, want any of the 2019 Red Raider receivers? The stunning realization that the program which made the 4-wide receiver offense chic had a group of pass-catchers in 2019 that would have ranked in the bottom three of the Big 12 is as much of an indictment of this program’s overall talent as any other sign we can point to.
While the team’s major problem in 2019 was a lack of quality depth, especially along the defensive line, to believe that the collection of individual talent is up to par would be a fool’s errand. Outside of Brooks, would any player that started for the Red Raiders have ranked in the top 50 players in the Big 12? No.
But with that said, we did see some nice individual performances along the way to this year’s 4-8 finish. The problem is that we didn’t see enough showings like the ones that follow to bring about a winning season. With that said, here are the top individual performances from the Red Raider football team this fall.