We just witnessed an incredibly competitive football season in the Big 12, maybe the most competitive race in league history. Eight teams went 8-4 or better in 2024, and four teams tied for first place in the final standing, with Arizona State and Iowa State eventually moving on to the Big 12 Championship Game.
When the regular season ended for the fourteen Big 12 teams who didn’t make it to Arlington, the race for the 2025 crown began. One of the most important phases in college football today is roster building through the transfer portal. It’s how championship teams supplement needy areas of their roster and round out into contenders.
While we’re just a couple of weeks into teams building for next year’s run, one team has already jumped out front by considerably improving its roster in the days since the transfer portal opened on December 9.
When it comes to talent acquisition in the portal, Joey McGuire and the Texas Tech Red Raiders are currently stuffing the rest of the Big 12 into a locker.
Texas Tech has earned 12 commitments over the last nine days, and many of those additions held offers from significant players in the NIL game. If Texas Tech has wanted a player in the portal, they’ve gotten them to this point.
As of right now, Texas Tech has landed the transfer portal’s:
- No. 1 DL – Lee Hunter (UCF)
- No. 2 OT – Hunter Zambrano (Illinois St.)
- No. 4 TE – Terrance Carter (Louisiana)
- No. 6 DL – Skyler Gill-Howard (NIU)
- No. 6 CB – Brice Pollock (Miss. St.)
- No. 7 CB – Tarrion Grant (Purdue)
- No. 7 OT – Howard Sampson (North Carolina)
- No. 11 S – Cole Wisniewski (NDSU)
- No. 17 WR – Reggie Virgil (Miami, OH)
- No. 33 DL – Anthony Holmes (Houston)
- No. 34 CB – Dontae Balfour (Charlotte)
Note: Player rankings from On3
What Texas Tech has done isn’t just impressive compared to the Big 12, it’s impressive on a national scale. The Red Raiders currently have the No. 1 transfer portal class, according to On3, with an index score of 54 and an increased NIL valuation of +$2.3M.
Texas Tech fans aren’t the only ones taking notice, either, as people from all over college football are starting to realize that something crazy is happening in Lubbock right now.
As of Wednesday afternoon, Texas Tech has seven four-star commitments in the transfer portal.
The rest of the Big 12? Four combined.
That’s the definition of dominance.
