When Tim DeRuyter took the job as the defensive coordinator at Texas Tech, the groundwork had largely been laid with several key fixtures in place for the veteran coach’s defense.

Program legends like Tony Bradford, Jaylon Hutchings and Dadrion Taylor-Demerson were on their way to becoming proven commodities, and DeRuyter’s defenses reaped the benefits of them and several other older players for two seasons.

Now, looking ahead to the 2024 season with those top players out of the picture, DeRuyter’s job has now become increasingly more difficult.

“Every year you gotta replace guys, that’s just the nature of college football,” DeRuyter told the media in a press conference Monday. “As a staff, you gotta do a good job developing guys. I think our systems have done a really nice job, particularly up front, we’re losing two guys that had a heck of a lot of experience in (Hutchings) and Tony (Bradford). Our young guys I think are really talented, and they’re starting to step up. The older guys, Quincy (Ledet) and Dooda (Banks) are having a really good spring. They’re improved their game, but you’ve gotta have depth to play. We feel pretty good about five or six guys right now.”

The absentees on the defensive line are note-worthy for several reasons, but other notable losses on that side of the ball come in the secondary. The Red Raiders are losing multi-year starting cornerbacks Rayshad Williams and Malik Dunlap, not to mention the major hole being vacated by Taylor-Demerson at field safety. Defensive backs coach Marcel Yates spoke previously on wanting to see his group play more physically next season, a sentiment DeRuyter echoed Monday.

“I think our corners in particular have been much more physical,” DeRuyter said. “Mo Horn’s had a great camp, Bralyn Lux got more playing time last year and he’s improved his game. Both those guys are doing a really good job in press coverage, but they’re also very good tacklers for us. The physicality, I think, has gone up. I think anytime you have guys playing with a lot of speed because they know what to do, you can actually play faster and play more physical.”

The fifth position in question in the secondary is the STAR-safety spot, being occupied by Brenden (BJ) Jordan and Adonis (AJ) McCarty. The Star’s true potential was compromised a season ago after Marquis “Muddy” Waters exhausted his eligibility in 2022.

CJ Baskerville, who has since moved to boundary safety and showed tremendous talent there, was the original replacement for Waters, followed by Jordan. Injuries and a midseason switch of Baskerville and Tyler Owens gave Jordan several opportunities for in-game experience, and McCarty played a similar position at Baylor.

After the success Waters had at the spot in 2022, DeRuyter is looking to field an heir that can bring the role back to prominence again.

“Our teach tapes, we have a lot of Mud on there,” DeRuyter said. “I think the way he played, the ability to make negative yardage plays, to play coverage, to disguise between ‘Am I in the rush or am I in coverage’, he had a great feel for it. When you first learn the position, particularly when you haven’t played college football like BJ last year, I think you’re just happy getting lined up. He’s got a much better feel so he’s adding some more nuance into his game. AJ has played some, not with our language, but he’s played the overhang position, so he’s got a little bit more natural of a feel for it. Competition makes both of those guys better, so if one guy doesn’t have a good day, the next guy’s in the first unit.”

Several players have taken tremendous strides in the spring, which has in turn given the whole staff confidence that this could be the deepest Tech team since head coach Joey McGuire arrived.

In a sense working from a “quantity over quality” perspective, there might not be any world-beaters on this defense, not yet, at least.

McGuire was quick to praise the growing depth of his squad after its second scrimmage, and DeRuyter keyed in on establishing a fortified group from the starters to the backups.

“We’re in work-in-progress,” DeRuyter said. “One of our goals in the spring is for guys to establish what their roles are going to be. As a coach, you want to have a solid two, two-and-a-half-deep, where if there is an injury, you don’t have a drastic drop off. I think we’re getting closer to that. There’s some positions we still need guys back, outside linebacker, we didn’t have Isaac Smith, Jo Adedire has been out the whole time. It’s gotten us a chance for us to get those younger guys a bunch of reps and see where they’re at. That’s why guys like Amier (Washington) has really shown up and gotten his game better.

"You still want to eliminate big plays. I thought we played pretty well in the last scrimmage, save for a handful of plays. You can’t give up those plays because that’s when you don’t play good defense. Our guys gotta learn from that and hopefully progress again this fall.”

With the spring game on the horizon to take place in Midland Saturday, the Red Raiders are close to pulling the curtain on practice opportunities for this session. After a productive scrimmage over the weekend, DeRuyter’s main concern is making sure his defense can walk away healthy and to see some of the players in the shadows get run time.

“You want everybody to continue to get better, we’re gonna have another big practice tomorrow,” DeRuyter said. “Spring games, in a lot of ways, we’re going to be pretty vanilla on both sides of the ball. It’s so our fans can see our teams and see everybody play, there’s usually not a lot of growth in that particular scrimmage. I don’t know if y’all saw what (Ole Miss) coach (Lane) Kiffin did on Saturday, or heard, I mean they had a dunk contest. And with the way the transfer portal is now, nobody wants to put their guys out there and let other people poach off of ‘Oh, hey, that backup tackle for Ole Miss is pretty good, let’s call his high school coach and see if he’s happy there.’ You know, that’s the world we live in right now. So, our guys will play but I don’t know how much the starters will play. We really get the opportunity to see those twos and threes and are they ready to make that jump.”