Texas Tech football: 3 Red Raiders that could be first-team All-Big 12

LB Riko Jeffers

If Texas Tech can land another linebacker on the first-team All-Big 12 roster, it will be three-straight years for that to have happened.  The most likely candidate to keep that streak alive is Riko Jeffers.

It is hard to believe that the Garland native is already a senior.  But he is and he’s primed for a big year after putting up a career-high 76 tackles as a junior.   That total also included a career-best 9.5 tackles for loss and 3.0 sacks.

Last year, he had at least five tackles in all but two games.  Now, he is one of the unquestioned leaders of the Red Raider defense and he could make a jump similar to the one we saw from one of his 2019 teammates.

In 2017, linebacker Jordyn Brooks registered 78 tackles as a junior, two more than Jeffers had in his junior campaign.  But as a senior, he racked up 108 in just 11 games on his way to second-team All-American 12 honors.

Though Jeffers plays outside LB, not middle LB as Brooks did, he could make a similar jump.  And the way he finished last season might suggest one is in store.

In 2019’s final three games, Jeffers racked up an average of 8.6 tackles.  What’s more, he had two sacks in that span.

Now in his second year of Keith Patterson’s defense, Jeffers will be unleashed to wreak havoc the way he did at the end of last season.  That could mean that he is going to see his productivity skyrocket and if he becomes a pass-rushing force off the edge, it could mean an All-Big 12 season is in store for him.