After a long, winding college career that started with the Auburn Tigers, continued with the USC Trojans, included a year with the Georgia Tech Yellow Jackets, and then concluded with an incredible run with the Texas Tech Red Raiders, Romello Height is now being projected to be able to continue his career in the NFL.
According to Luke Easterling over at Athlon Sports, who set up a pretty thorough, two-round 2026 NFL mock draft projection for folks to talk about, Height is apparently a good fit to land with the Tampa Bay Buccaneers.
Right now, in his mock draft, Easterling has the Tampa Bay Buccaneers picking up Height with the No. 46 overall pick, which would have the Texas Tech defensive star getting selected in the second round of the draft.
Athlon Sports’ mock 2026 NFL draft has Texas Tech Red Raiders defensive end Romello Height picked by Tampa Bay in the 2nd round
Height has been incredible for the Red Raiders throughout this season. And as noted above, while he’s played for four different college football programs, he really had a true breakthrough season while finishing his career in Lubbock as he reached a new level of potential at Texas Tech.
This season, in Shiel Wood’s defense, Height managed to record 38 combined tackles this season (a career high) along with 11.5 tackles for loss (also a career high) and 10 sacks (which is also a career high for Height).
With his time in Lubbock complete, Height wraps up his college career with a total of 111 combined tackles, 27 tackles for loss, 16.5 sacks, and one interception.
If he were to end up with Tampa Bay, Height would wind up playing for a team that certainly needs some help on the defensive side of things. The Buccaneers gave up over 4000 passing yards and a total of 30 passing touchdowns this season. Their pass rush (and pass defense as a whole) seemingly needs some assistance.