Texas Tech Football: Francis & Church Commit

The portal window closed last week, but there are still things that will possibly trickle in so there could be a few more players that commit. Missouri Edge Damon Wilson and Kent State Edge Jamond Mathis were both visiting and I haven’t heard anything. Wilson would be a big get, while Mathis was committed to Virginia, but had not signed the paperwork. In case you were curious, Texas Tech has the 8th best portal class according to 24/7 Sports, which would be 2nd in the Big 12, right behind Oklahoma State. Some of this is a quantity situation with Oklahoma State, they have 51 players in their portal class, while Texas Tech has 19. On3 has Texas Tech as the best portal class with Oklahoma State having the 23rd best class. There’s a lot of variation in the two services.

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Returning Players:

LT Howard Sampson
TE Terrance Carter, Jr.
CB Brice Pollock
RB J’Koby Williams
RB Cameron Dickey
RB Quinten Joyner

Portal Commits: The players who have most recently committed are in bold. If you are interested in prior coverage, you can check out the football category of STP.

Cincinnati QB Brendan Sorsby (6-3/235)
Tulsa QB Kirk Francis (6-1/200): Francis has played 3 years for Tulsa and just finished his redshirt sophomore year. For his career, Francis has completed 58% of his passes for 6.6 yards an attempt, 18 touchdowns and 13 picks. At Tulsa, I think that Francis was sort of passed up by freshman Baylor Hayes who saw most of the action this past year for Golden Hurricanes. Francis is an insurance policy for Texas Tech in case something happens to Sorsby, someone who has actual game experience, while Lloyd Jones III was just a true freshman and only saw time in limited action. If you are curious, CFB Depth had Francis as a 12.4 overall rating and Hayes as 11.2 overall, so Francis maybe graded better than Hayes, but Hayes still seemed to get a ton of playing time.
Alabama State IR Jalen Jones (5-9/175)
Liberty WR Donte Lee, Jr.(6-3/185)
Pittsburgh WR Kenny Johnson (6-1/205)
Auburn WR Malcolm Simmons (6-0/186)
Louisville OG Jordan Church (6-4/310): Using the data at CFB Depth, Church had an overall rank of 12.5, a 12.9 rank and a pass block of 10.3 (a 20 is the best you can get). For reference purposes, Davion Carter was a 14.4 overall, 13.3 run block and 17.2 pass block, while Will Jados was 11.3 overall, 11.2 run block and 12.4 pass block. This is always one of those tricky situations where I’m not going to sit here and tell you that Church is this unbelievable player (I’ve seen people say he’s a terrific run blocker) but I don’t know and I’m not going to sit through Louisville video to tell me if he is or isn’t. I think this is a good piece, but time will tell if someone like Cash Cleveland or someone else steps up, like Holton Hendrix.
Nevada TE Jett Carpenter (6-3/258)
Akron DL Julien Laventure (6-1/270)
Washington DL Bryce Butler (6-5/320)
Wake Forest DL Mateen Ibirogba (6-4/290)
San Diego State DE Trey White (6-2/255)
Oregon State DE Jojo Johnson (6-2/288)
Miami (OH) DE Adam Trick (6-4/249)
Kansas State LB Austin Romaine (6-2/232)
Houston LB Corey Platt, Jr. (6-2/215)
UTSA CB Davin Martin (6-2/165)
SFA K Jacob Hand (5-11/170)

Predictions: None as of right now.

None

Resources:

The No. 17 Lady Raiders fell to Kansas State on Saturday, their first loss of the season. They will be in Provo to take on BYU on Wednesday night . . . ESPN College Gameday is coming to Lubbock on Saturday as Houston will be in town and what will likely be the game of the week in college basketball . . . If you want to get your fill of Texas Tech baseball, Double-T 97.3 has you covered . . .