San Diego State transfer CJ Baskerville comes home to Texas Tech
Texas Tech head coach Joey McGuire has on more than one occasion noted that when it comes to the transfer portal, his preference is to take players that either A) the staff has a previous existing relationship with or B) are from Texas, went out of state for college, and are now looking to come back to their home state.
Former Richland (TX) and San Diego State safety CJ Baskerville definitely fits the mold, and after picking up his offer from Texas Tech on Tuesday didn't take long to decide he wanted to play for the Red Raiders.
Baskerville entered the portal on December 1st, and says right away he had several schools trying to get him to their respective programs.
"The process of the transfer portal, I definitely got a fair share of both worlds. On the first day Tulane just came out the cannon and offered me off the bat. That was because the defensive coordinator over there, he was recruiting me whenever he was at Duke. So when he saw I went to the portal I was a guy that he wanted.
I had a lot of Texas schools reach out to me. I had UTSA, TCU I had spoken to, Oklahoma State I had spoken to, just those schools. Then for a bit I was kinda getting little reach-outs, Murray State, New Mexico, Louisiana Tech, things of that sort, Stephen F. Austin. Then in the last week Arizona State reached out.
Yesterday whenever Texas Tech had reached out to me I was surprised. We immediately got to texting and they were just asking if I wanted to come home. That's kind of like my whole ordeal. I talked to my dad and I was like 'I'd love to go play at Texas Tech, I have a lot of friends over there, a lot of people I know because I went to school in Texas.' It just seemed like a very good option for me.
Coach (Joey) McGuire, he was really, really cool with my head coach in high school. They know each other from way back when so whenever I was just chilling, my head coach from high school texted me 'hey coach McGuire just called me about you'. I lit up like a Christmas tree, I was like 'no way, coach McGuire?' and he was like 'yeah, he's really impressed.'
Him and I talked, my head coach and I from high school, and we both said that Tech would be a great place to go considering how the transfer portal is these days. Stuff can be there and then stuff can not be there the next day. I feel like Tech was just an opportunity that I couldn't pass up at all."
With Marquis 'Muddy' Waters out of eligibility, Texas Tech has a big need at the STAR position that Waters played this season. Enter Baskerville. Listed at 6-foot-2, 210 pounds, Baskerville has the size and athleticism required to slide right into that role on this defense.
"At San Diego State I did both of those things (play deep and in the box). A lot of the time they liked me high and free, being able to read the quarterback because I believe I'm a rangy guy, I'm able to find the ball. I would also definitely fit into the box, kind of into the boundary, into that backside B and C gap. It was just kinda something that I developed naturally and it just felt like the right thing to be at.
The Texas Tech coaches they saw that looking at my film, and they said that 'our STAR safety is leaving after this year, he led the nation in TFL's for defensive backs, he was very aggressive in the run game and we think that's exactly what your game is about' and I couldn't agree more. So I think for my skillset Texas Tech fits that perfectly and that's something that I really considered throughout this process. I was trying to find a school that did that and they told me how they did it, and they explained it well, and that was something I was very thankful of and I feel like I found a school that just completes my skillset."
Making Baskerville's decision easier is the fact that he has several friends in Lubbock including wide receiver, and former transfer himself, Brady Boyd.
"Yeah so Brady Boyd, he's a receiver who transferred in last year. Whenever I moved to Richland high school he just left because his dad got a job at Southlake but we knew of each other and we had talked some before, so it's gonna be real cool to kinda rekindle things with him since we know each other from a little bit ago. I'm originally from Katy, TX and I moved to Fort Worth, and there's a lot of kids who go to school at Texas Tech and they were probably more excited than me to see that one of their friends is gonna go play football at their school. I have a lot of connections all around."
Baskerville is committed and done with his recruiting process, but he will still take his official visit to Lubbock this weekend with the primary goal of meeting the coaches in person and seeing his future home.
"Meeting the coaches is my number one priority going into this because I think a relationship is everything to me, especially in the college football world, so for me to kinda come in and try to fit as a part of the team I think it kinda starts with the coaches. That's number one obviously.
Just seeing how the campus is, where I'm gonna be at, obviously everybody loves to look at the stadium and stuff like that. This is gonna be my first time playing in a Big 12, southern stadium because I've been playing out on the West Coast so it's a little different over there, but the number one thing is meeting the coaches for sure and creating relationships. That's what I'm looking forward to the most."
Baskerville will arrive at Texas Tech in the coming weeks and go through winter conditioning and spring football. He still has his redshirt available and will have three years to play two seasons.
Per sports-reference.com, Baskerville has put up 74 tackles, 2.5 tackles-for-loss, one interception, five passes defended and a fumble recovery over his first two college football seasons.
PFF credits Baskerville with 850 defensive snaps in his career. As a freshman his grade was 81.0 and as a sophomore his grade was 67.1, which are both above average. He was named the 2021 Tropical Smoothie Frisco Bowl Most Valuable Defensive Player after putting up nine tackles and an interception in a 38-24 win over UTSA.