Texas Tech football: Position groups that will be improved in 2020

Receivers

There’s no question that the receivers Tech had to work with in 2019 were not of the caliber of those that have previously come through this program.  After seeing both Antoine Wesley (2018) and Keke Coutee (2017) surpass the 1,400-yard mark in the last two years, Tech did not have one player even get half of that this past season as Erik Ezukanma led the team with 664 yards.

The difference wasn’t the offensive philosophy either.   Though we were convinced that new OC David Yost was going to run the ball much more than we had seen any OC do since the Spyke Dykes era, Tech wound up throwing the ball 44.3 times per game, which was just 0.3 times less than in 2018 and 2.7 times more per game than in 2017.

The problem was that the receivers simply didn’t win enough one-on-one battles with defensive backs.  Tech’s outside receivers were not able to get separation against press coverage and opposing defenses were able to single them up and then play their safeties back deep to protect against anything over the middle.

But there are reasons to believe that this year’s pass-catchers will be better.  First of all, the two returning starters, T.J. Vasher and Ezukanma should be better.

Wells recently praised the progress Vasher has made both physically and in terms of his maturity since the start of the offseason and over half of Ezukanma’s yards and three of his four touchdowns came in the final four games of the year as the light appeared to come on towards the end of his first season as a starter.

In addition, the Red Raiders have added a pair of highly-coveted freshmen signees set to arrive this summer in Loic Fouonji and Ja’Lynn Polk, both of whom are expected to compete for immediate playing time.  Also, the inside receivers should be better as well, especially with Xavier White and Dalton Rigdon back to full health after each missed multiple games last fall leaving McLane Mannix as the only healthy option at the position.

The 2019 receivers were about as spare as we have seen from any group at Tech since the late 1990s and yet, the Red Raiders still finished second in the Big 12 in total offense and tops in passing yards.  Imagine what this offense could become this season if the receivers play at the level that we’ve come to expect from receivers in this program.