The second season of the Joey McGuire era for Texas Tech has come and gone and the anticipation is already growing for 2024. Heading into the 2023 season, there were several players who had the opportunity to become the team’s star player, a spot that was seemingly vacant before the campaign. Today, we take a look at the Red Raiders’ top five players for the 2023 year.
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5. CJ Baskerville - Safety
Going into the season, there was a certain mystique and intrigue about Baskerville taking over at the STAR position. What earned Baskerville a nod onto this list was his consistent improvement as the season went on, which became even more prevalent after his move to boundary safety.
Though it was a switch to a position that was not completely foreign to him given where he played at his last school, doing something that dramatic and being successful afterwards was worthy of some recognition. 77 total tackles, two interceptions and a return in 2024 give optimism around Baskerville moving forward.
4. Austin McNamara - Punter
A staple in the special teams unit for several seasons, McNamara improved his average by two yards (46.3) from 2022 (44.3) and amassed his most total yards since 2019. McNamara was the third-highest graded punter in the country per PFF.com, grading out at 87.6 for the season.
McNamara’s efforts earned him Big 12 Special Teams Player of the Year, Tech’s first player to earn that selection since the award was created in 2005. There is a reason the staff went into the portal to find a punter. It will be impossible to replicate what McNamara was able to offer when called upon, but what he was able to accomplish will not soon be forgotten.
3. Ben Roberts - Inside Linebacker
Absolutely nobody could have predicted the kind of impact that Ben Roberts was going to have this season. It was highly improbable, but the misfortunes that plague Tech in the health department turned out to uncover a hidden gem in Roberts.
The redshirt freshman became the team’s leading tackler with 105 total across the season, earning Big 12 Co-Defensive Freshman of the Year honors, and he made a strong enough case to possibly earn the award outright. Roberts perfectly embodied the “Next Man Up” mentality. He turned a linebacker room that was sorely in need of depth in 2023 to now looking like the positional group with the least amount of questions surrounding it going into 2024.
2. Dadrion Taylor-Demerson
After a respectable senior campaign in 2022, Dadrion Taylor-Demerson took a massive leap in his super-senior season, emerging as the Red Raiders’ most consistent defensive piece. In the process, Taylor-Demerson made a name for himself nationally and now looks to almost certainly get a chance to compete at the next level.
An All-Big 12 Second Team selection was the culmination of a 72 tackle, seven PBU and four interception showing as “Rabbit” became a household name at field safety this season. While the hype surrounded several other defensive pieces entering their fifth and sixth seasons, Taylor-Demerson improved the most in his final season with his surefire open-field tackling and leadership on the back end in coverage.
1. Tahj Brooks
Would this have truly been a list of the best Tech players this season without Tahj Brooks being at the top? There are so many things that could be said about Brooks that have been said already. After sharing carries for the better part of the last two seasons, Brooks dominated 2023 and proved to be a worthy toter of the rock on his own, amassing 1538 over 290 carries.
The inability of the offense to move the ball through the air was alleviated by Brooks becoming the hardest man to tackle in college football. Nearly 1,000 of Brooks’ yards came after contact, 998 to be exact per PFF.com, ranking third in the country. One of my favorite of Brooks’ stats to keep up with weekly was Missed Tackles Forced, which he led all rushers with 96 on the season.
With Brooks returning for a fifth and final season in 2024, the pieces are in place for Brooks, currently ranked seventh, to become Tech’s all-time leading rusher and cement himself as one of the greatest to ever don the red and black.
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