Wreck'Em Red
Fansided

Texas Tech football: Putting a final wrap on the 2015 recruiting class

By Matthew Conner

LUBBOCK, TEXAS - OCTOBER 05: Defensive tackle Broderick Washington Jr #96 of the Texas Tech Red Raiders holds up the ball after recovering a fumble during the first half of the college football game between the Texas Tech Red Raiders and the Oklahoma State Cowboys on October 05, 2019 at Jones AT&T Stadium in Lubbock, Texas. (Photo by John E. Moore III/Getty Images)
LUBBOCK, TEXAS - OCTOBER 05: Defensive tackle Broderick Washington Jr #96 of the Texas Tech Red Raiders holds up the ball after recovering a fumble during the first half of the college football game between the Texas Tech Red Raiders and the Oklahoma State Cowboys on October 05, 2019 at Jones AT&T Stadium in Lubbock, Texas. (Photo by John E. Moore III/Getty Images) /
facebooktwitterreddit
Prev
1 of 6
Next
The Texas Tech Red Raiders mascot Masked Rider rides Fearless Champion to lead the team on the field. (Photo by John Weast/Getty Images) *** Local Caption ***
The Texas Tech Red Raiders mascot Masked Rider rides Fearless Champion to lead the team on the field. (Photo by John Weast/Getty Images) *** Local Caption *** /

Now that every member of the 2015 Texas Tech football recruiting class is out of the college ranks, let’s look back one last time on a class that proved to be a massive disappointment.

Earlier this week, I stumbled across a story about former Texas Tech running back Corey Dauphine and it made me think about the recruiting class of 2015, of which he was a major part.  The story was that the former highly-coveted recruit and current member of the Tulane football program has suffered a torn Achilles tendon which will cause him to miss the upcoming season, which would have been his sixth and final as a collegiate after he was granted a waiver by the NCAA this offseason.

Though the news is certainly devastating for Dauphine, I couldn’t help but think about how appropriate it was for the last member of Tech’s 2015 signing class still active in the NCAA to go out with a whimper.  After all, that collection of 19 enrollees has to be one of the biggest disappointments in Red Raider football history.

When that group was officially inked in February of 2015, expectations were massive. 247Sports.com ranked the class No. 32 overall and third in the Big 12.   It was by far the highest-rated class of the Kliff Kingsbury era and the only class of the last decade that has generated any type of serious buzz among fans in scarlet and black.

Overall, there were six offensive linemen, five wide receivers, three defensive backs, three defensive linemen, a running back, and a linebacker that signed with Tech that year.  But of those players, only eight were on the Texas Tech roster in 2018 with eleven either transferring, retiring from the game, or being kicked off the team.

That type of attrition not only brought about the end of the Kingsbury era but it hamstrung Matt Wells in his first season as his program was woefully thin on quality upperclassmen. And of course, the greatest flaw in that recruiting haul was that there was no QB signed that year.

Remember that for the vast majority of the recruiting cycle, former Baylor and Auburn QB Jarrett Stidham, who is now with the New England Patriots, was committed to Tech.  But not wanting to sit behind Pat Mahomes, he decomitted just days before the December dead period leaving Tech no shot at finding a quality QB in that class.

Though Tech did try to court eventual SMU signee Ben Hicks following Stidham’s defection, it was to no avail and the class was signed with a hole at the most critical position in the game.  How different would the last few years have looked had Tech had another healthy and viable QB on the roster?  Yeah.

So now that we have the benefit of hindsight, let’s look back on the dud that was the 2015 class and see just how it’s failings impacted the current state of the Texas Tech football program.  As we do, we will start to understand why the Red Raider roster remains full of holes and defined by weaknesses and uncertainty.

Home/Texas Tech Football