Texas Tech football: The most underrated players of the Tommy Tuberville era

LB Bront Bird

You could say that former LB Bront Bird is more of a Mike Leach player than a Tuberville player.  After all, his only year playing for “Pine Box” Tubby was in 2010.

But as a senior, he finally broke out for the Red Raiders after being somewhat mediocre the previous three seasons.  That year, he racked up an impressive 106 tackles (five for loss) and three picks.  Prior to that, he had managed just 136 tackles in his career.

After being undrafted in 2011, he caught on with the San Diego Chargers for whom he played three seasons.  But after the 2013 season, his best as a professional, he returned to his native Permian Basin to work in the oil and gas industry.

As a senior, he had three games with double-digit tackles.  That included a season-high 14 against Oklahoma State, 11 against Colorado, and 10 against Oklahoma.

Though it might seem strange for modern-day Red Raider fans who have seen the likes of Jordyn Brooks, Dakota Allen, and Riko Jeffers man the Red Raider LB corps in recent years, during Bird’s time, it was easy to point to the LB spots as the most undermanned aspects of the roster.

For years, Tech struggled to field a full complement of LBs capable of being even just above-average Big 12 players.  But that’s what Bird became in his senior season  and though he was never a star like Brooks, he was a player who had a career worth remembering in Lubbock.

The Tuberville era of Texas Tech football was a disaster off the field.  It was a period defined by the closest the program has experienced to a civil war in its nearly 100 years of existence.  But thanks to the above players, the product on the field wasn’t as abhorrent as the actions off the field of the man leading the way were.