Texas Tech football flips 3-star defensive back away from Washington State

It had been nearly a month since the Texas Tech football program received good news on the recruiting trail. During that time, the Red Raiders had seen several one-time 2025 commits flip to other schools thus dropping the program's recruiting ranking by nearly 20 spots nationally.

On Friday, though, the Red Raiders turned that trend around and flipped a commit away from a program on Tech's 2024 schedule. Braylan McDonald, a 3-star defensive back recruit from Lancaster, Texas announced on social media that he has committed to the Red Raiders after visiting Lubbock this past weekend. Until this week, he had been pledged to attend Washington State as part of the class of 2025.

The five-foot-11, 185-pound safety is rated the No. 128 player in the country at his position and the No. 231 overall player in Texas by 247Sports.com. In addition to Texas Tech and Washington State, he holds offers from Boston College, UTEP, Bowling Green, and Texas State.

This is the first commitment the Red Raiders have picked up since July 4. Tech's 2025 class now sits at 17 players and is ranked No. 43 nationally and No. 8 in the Big 12.

Of the 17 recruits verbally pledged to the Red Raiders, only six call the defensive side of the football home. McDonald is only the second safety in that group.

Fortunately, that's a position where the Red Raiders are in good shape with the current roster. Though 2024 starter C.J. Baskerville has only one year left to play, players such as Chapman Lewis, Brenden Jordan, Jordan Sanford, Javeon Wilcox, and Peyton Morgan are sophomores or younger meaning that the Tech secondary is stocked with promising underclassmen.

Thus, replenishing the ranks at safety isn't that high of a priority in this recruiting cycle. With that in mind, the fact that Joey McGuire and Co. gave a spot in what is expected to be a small class to McDonald says quite a bit about what the coaching staff thinks about his future.