Texas Tech football: The most underrated players of the Mike Leach era

WR Carlos Francis

Carlos Francis is a name that many Texas Tech football fans are likely to remember.  But even the most dedicated of fans would probably be surprised to see where the speedster ranks statistically in some key statistical categories.

In fact, the Fort Worth native ranks in the top ten in Red Raider history in receptions, yards, and TD catches.  That certainly surprised this writer when looking back at his career and I was in school at the same time Francis was.

But while I never forgot about him as a player, I didn’t remember him having a better career statistically than such players as Joel Filani, Jarrett Hicks, Danny Amendola, or Eric Ward but a case could be made that he did just that.  But the reason we may not think of him in the same regard as the all-time greats in Tech history is that he never had a monster year.

Francis had just one 1,000-yard season, 2003.  As a senior, he caught 75 passes for 1,177 yards and 9 TDs.  Those numbers were all good for career-highs but far from legendary by Red Raider standards.

Each of the rest of his three seasons on the Caprock saw him put up between 519 and 703 yards, 41 and 50 receptions, and two and seven TDs.  Just like Key Dawson, Carlos Francis was defined by his consistency from the moment that he stepped on campus.

His best game came as a freshman in 2000 when he had 234 yards and a TD on just seven catches against Utah State.  That was good for an insane average of 33.4 yards per catch.

Currently, the former two-star athlete, who also ran track for the Red Raiders, is 8th in program history with 216 receptions, 5th in receiving yards with 3,031, and tied for 9th with 21 TD receptions.  To put that in perspective, he ended up with just 38 fewer receiving yards than Wes Welker and the same number of TD grabs.  You could surprise quite a few Red Raider fans with that information.