This fall, Texas Tech football fans are going to need to consult their game-day roster like never before. With 21 transfers and 18 freshmen set to join the program, tons of new faces will populate the roster. In fact, many of those first-year Red Raiders will play critical roles.
With 2025 entering its fifth month, many college sports fans are already turning their attention to September when football returns. Unfortunately, though, we have to wade through four more months until Labor Day weekend arrives and the college game kicks off in earnest. Thus, we've entered what is known as "list season", when outlets across the nation turn to ranking just about everything they can think of in order to produce content.
Recently, CBS Sports took an interesting look at each team in its current preseason top-25 by listing which player will be each team's MVP. To the surprise of some Texas Tech fans, their pick for the No. 24 Red Raiders was not QB Behren Morton or even an offensive player. Rather, it is a newcomer, David Bailey.
According to the article's author, Will Backus, "Bailey is the crown jewel of Texas Tech's loaded transfer haul, and he fills an immediate need for the Red Raiders. They had 21 sacks as a team last season. No individual players finished with more than five sacks. Bailey got to the quarterback seven times at Stanford, which means he would have accounted for a third of Tech's sack production by himself. Landing players like Bailey will go a long way towards fixing a Texas Tech defense that ranked near the bottom of the Big 12 in 2024."
Why David Bailey will be so crucial to Texas Tech's hopes in 2025
It is natural for most football fans to believe that a quarterback, running back, or wide receiver will be a team's MVP. After all, Backus has an offensive skill player as the MVP for 20 of the 25 teams on his list. That includes eleven quarterbacks.
However, the 2025 Texas Tech offense is not going to be built on the strength of star power. With the program's all-time leading rusher, Tahj Brooks, now in the NFL with the Cincinnati Bengals, the Red Raiders will rely on a host of solid players to power their offense, but none are considered household names in the sport. In fact, it will be a shock if any Texas Tech offensive skill position player is listed as a first-team preseason All-Big 12 selection.
Instead, most of Tech's high-profile players now call the defensive side of the ball home. That includes UCF transfer DT Lee Hunter and Georgia Tech transfer edge rusher Romello Height. However, no Red Raider enters the season with more hype than Bailey.
According to 247Sports.com, Bailey is the No. 11 overall transfer in 2025 and the No. 3 edge rusher in the portal. He's also the highest-rated member of the Red Raiders' portal haul.
Bailey has the chance to give the Red Raiders something they've rarely had: a dominant pass rusher. The program hasn't had a player with more than five sacks in a season since Tyree Wilson recorded seven in both 2021 and 2022. What's more, the last Red Raider to register double-digit sacks in a season was way back in 2009 when Brandon Sharpe had 15.
Bailey is the top candidate to end that streak this fall. For his career, the Stanford transfer has 14.5 sacks in 32 games. That includes the 7.0 he racked up in 2024.
Thus, it isn't hard to see him threatening to hit double digits this fall. If he takes a step forward as a senior, he could set a new career-high.
Additionally, he'll be playing on a defensive line that will be light years better than the ones he was part of in Palo Alto. Tech will have excellent players at each position along the defensive front, meaning Bailey won't be the only player opposing teams must consider sending extra blockers toward.
If Bailey can be the best pass rusher in the Big 12 and help Tech finally find a way to apply consistent pressure on opposing passers, it will transform the defense. That's something this program is desperate to see happen, and that's why it isn't hard to understand why Bailey could in fact be the most valuable Red Raider in 2025.