Texas Tech football: Eli Howard may be defense’s most important player

Given the lack of proven pass rushers, senior DE Eli Howard may be the most important member of the Texas Tech football team’s defense in 2020.

We’ve spent a healthy amount of time this offseason focused on the failings of the 2019 Texas Tech football team’s secondary. But we can’t overlook the role that the defensive line has to play in improving the Big 12’s worst pass defense from a season ago.

The good news is that the 2019 team showed an increase in sacks per game. Under the new more aggressive scheme of DC Keith Patterson, the Red Raiders registered 2.0 sacks per game, up from 1.7 the previous year when DC David Gibbs asked his team to play a more reactive style of defense.

But the bad news is that a significant portion of the 2019 team’s productivity in that area is now gone. With the graduations of Jordyn Brooks and Broderick Washington, Tech will have to replace 7.5 of last year’s 24 team sacks. (Actually, in total Tech has to replace 8.5 sacks given the one sack LB Evan Rambo gave the Red Raiders last season.)

What’s more, even with the improved pass-rush numbers last fall, Tech still ranked just 7th in the Big 12 and 59th nationally in team sacks per game. That’s one reason the Red Raiders were just 128th out of 130 teams in the country in passing yards allowed at 288 per game.

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Thus, senior DE Eli Howard is going to take on even more importance this fall than he has so far in his Red Raider career. Coming off a season in which he led the team with a career-high 5.0 sacks, Howard now has to be an even greater force along the defensive line.

That’s because there simply are no other defensive linemen on the roster who have proven to be consistent pass rushers. In fact, last season, Howard and Washington were the only two that registered over two sacks. Taking it a step further, no defensive lineman on the roster outside of Howard has more than the 1.5 career sacks that sophomore Tony Bradford Jr. has to his name.

The key for Howard might be just staying healthy. It isn’t that he’s had massive injuries that have cost him large swaths of time but it’s that nagging injuries have limited his effectiveness. In fact, last season, he was not practicing during the week just so that his body could recover in time for Saturdays.

Howard is not a pass rusher who is going to overwhelm blockers with athleticism. Rather, his greatest asset is his relentless motor, and to play with such effort he must be healthy enough to play at 100%.

There are expectations for Howard this year from people outside of Lubbock. He was named to the first-team preseason all-conference team by Athlon Sports proving just how critical to the Red Raiders he could be. What’s more, he was the only Red Raider on Athlon’s first-team defense.

The truth is that there are no other players on the defense that mean more to their position group than Howard. The closest may be OLB Riko Jeffers but should he go down for a significant period of time, players like Xavier Benson or Tyrique Mathews could step into his shoes and perform adequately.

Teams simply can’t survive in the Big 12 without a pass rush. And if the Red Raiders are going to take a step forward on defense this year, Howard is going to have to stay healthy and take his game to its highest level thus far in his football career.