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Texas Tech football: 2020 draft picks that could have saved Kliff Kingsbury’s job

By Matthew Conner

LUBBOCK, TX - NOVEMBER 10: Head coach Kliff Kingsbury of the Texas Tech Red Raiders leads his team onto the field before the game against the Texas Longhorns on November 10, 2018 at Jones AT&T Stadium in Lubbock, Texas. Texas defeated Texas Tech 41-34. (Photo by John Weast/Getty Images)
LUBBOCK, TX - NOVEMBER 10: Head coach Kliff Kingsbury of the Texas Tech Red Raiders leads his team onto the field before the game against the Texas Longhorns on November 10, 2018 at Jones AT&T Stadium in Lubbock, Texas. Texas defeated Texas Tech 41-34. (Photo by John Weast/Getty Images) /
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Wide receiver Jalen Reagor #1 of the TCU Horned Frogs (Photo by John E. Moore III/Getty Images)
Wide receiver Jalen Reagor #1 of the TCU Horned Frogs (Photo by John E. Moore III/Getty Images) /

Receiver Jalen Reagor from TCU

One of the most disappointing recruiting defeats of the last 10 years for Texas Tech football fans was losing Red Raider legacy Jalen Reagor to TCU.  The son of former Tech great Montae Reagor was a 4-star target and the No. 13 receiver in the nation back in 2017 when he shunned his father’s alma mater to stay closer to his hometown of Waxahachie.

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Despite playing for a school with massive QB issues itself over the last three years, the first-round pick of the Philadelphia Eagles was able to put up 2,248 yards and 22 touchdowns in his three years in Fort Worth.  Most of those yards came from the slot, which is where Tech has struggled since seeing Keke Coutee head to the NFL after the 2017 season.

In 2018, Ja’Deion High was just serviceable in the slot with 804 yards and 4 touchdowns while the other slot, Seth Collins, managed only 317 yards an 2 TDs.  Last year, Dalton Rigdon led Tech’s slot receivers with 486 yards and 5 scores.

What has made the Red Raider slots of the past two seasons less impactful than we’ve come to expect is that they have not been as explosive as guys like Coutee, Jakeem Grant, or Wes Welker.  But big plays were Jalen Reagor’s expertise.  As a sophomore, he averaged 13.1 yards per catch and his electric speed made him a home run threat every time he touched the football.

Reagor also could have turned a game or two on special teams.  How long has it been since Tech got a kick return that proved to be game-changing?  Well, had Reagor come to town and brought his career 17.8-yard punt return average and 24.2-yard kickoff return average, that might be an area of the game where Kingsbury could have stolen a close win or two.

Had Kingsbury been able to convince Reagor to follow in his father’s footsteps and come to Tech, it would have given the program a dynamic pair of inside receivers in 2017 with he and Coutee forming the best tandem of slot receivers in the country, and it would have allowed Tech to have an explosive option to pair with Antoine Wesley in 2018.  Think about the nightmare that such a pairing would have been for opposing defenses that year.  Certainly, that would have led to another win or two in a season filled with so many close losses.

Next. The most underrated players of the Kingsbury era. dark

In the end, recruiting was what proved to be the undoing of the Kliff Kingsbury era.  But as we’ve seen, he landed on his feet rather nicely by scoring the head coaching job with the Arizona Cardinals after being fired in 2018.  But there will always be a sense of disappointment on both his part and the part of Texas Tech fans about the fact that what originally seemed like a match made in Heaven eventually went off the rails.   And if he would have been able to bring these three players to town, it would have had far-reaching implications on both Texas Tech and the NFL.

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