Texas Tech football: Red Raiders pick up commitment from massive OL

Thursday, the Texas Tech football team picked up a verbal commitment from 2021 OL Jacoby Jackson, who is already a full-grown man.

For the first time since August, the Texas Tech football team picked up a verbal commitment in the class of 2021.  And the player that the Red Raiders landed is one of the largest players in the state of Texas.

6-foot-6, 320-pound offensive tackle Jacoby Jackson from Arlington announced his decision to commit to Matt Wells’ program on Twitter.  He becomes the 10th player in the current recruiting class to pledge to the Red Raiders.

Rated by the 247Sports composite rankings as the No. 92 offensive tackle in the nation and the No. 163 player in Texas, Jones is a 3-star prospect and just the second offensive lineman in the Red Raiders’ current class.   In addition to Tech, he held offers from Baylor, Texas, TCU, Arizona, Arizona State, Duke, Florida State, Houston, Iowa State, Kansas, Mississippi State, Oklahoma State, Ole Miss, Utah, Washington State, and a host of other programs.

https://twitter.com/JacobyJackson75/status/1316883078774771719?s=20

Jackson has been on Tech’s radar for over a calendar year.  What’s more, he’s held an offer from the Red Raiders since December of 2019.

Originally, Jones committed to TCU back in July.  However, he was back on the open market by the end of August and now he’s decided he wants to be a Red Raider.

This is a significant development given how sparse the Texas Tech offensive line recruiting has been in recent years.  In fact, it has been quite some time since the Red Raiders have landed close to a full class along the offensive front.

In 2020, the Red Raiders added just three linemen to the program with one being a JUCO transfer.  Meanwhile, two classes ago, there were only two offensive linemen that signed with the program.

Even with this news, there remains quite a bit of work for Tech to do in the current recruiting class.  It is just No. 91 in the nation and No. 9 in the big 12.

Expect the 2021 class to be one of the smallest in Tech history though.  With this year’s players all receiving another year of eligibility because of the unusual circumstances surrounding the 2020 season and with a small group of seniors on the roster, it appears that Wells and his staff are comfortable with a class that would be considered in most years too small to meet the program’s needs.

But Jacoby Jackson is a player that they have targeted for quite some time and one who could figure into the plans of the Red Raiders rather quickly given this program’s lack of depth at tackle.  So though it has been longer than we would have liked in between commitments, at least the player that the Red Raiders added to end their two-month drought is one that looks like he could make an impact when he arrives.