Tahj Brooks talks Texas Tech legacy during NFL Combine media session
This week, the world’s most fascinating job fair, the NFL Scouting Combine, is being held in Indianapolis, Indiana. One of the hundreds of former college football players who are hoping to impress scouts and executives alike during the event is Texas Tech running back Tahj Brooks.
Friday, Brooks spoke to the media as part of the combine, and he talked confidently about what he achieved at his alma mater. To no one’s surprise, his remarks were not focused just on his individual achievements.
“I feel like the legacy I left was just something that can be built,” he said. “I left a legacy of, especially coming from an ‘Air Raid’ offense that they say, I turned an ‘Air Raid’ offense into a spread run offense, you know what I mean?
“I’m the all-time leading rusher in Texas Tech history. That’s something that I want to say a lot of people in here can say, you know what I mean? That’s just the legacy I left, was winning. I changed the culture there, especially from [Coach] McGuire and changing culture and just improving that way. And so, I feel like I left a lot at that school, and I’m blessed to do it.”
It was quite the journey from unheralded recruit to college star for Brooks. In the recruiting class of 2020, he was just a 3-star prospect from Manor, Texas.
247Sports rated him just the No. 624 recruit and the No. 45 running back in the country. Aside from Tech, his best offers were TCU, Iowa State, Kansas State, Arizona, Utah, and Missouri. Therefore, when he arrived, no one saw him breaking Byron Hanspard’s career rushing record.
It was a slow start for Brooks as a collegiate. He carried the ball only 69 times for 255 yards and four touchdowns as a true freshman. As a sophomore, he had 568 yards and seven TDs, and as a junior, he posted 691 yards and seven more scores.
It was in 2023 that he broke out, though. No longer having to split carries with former Red Raider running back SaRodorick Thompson, he became a workhorse.
In year four as a collegiate, he ran for 1,538 yards and ten touchdowns on 290 carries. Then, as a super-senior in 2024, he amassed 1,505 yards and 17 TDs on 286 carries in 11 games.
Of course, he played a huge role in helping the Red Raiders climb out of the awful downward spiral they were in as a program when he arrived.
In 2020, Brooks’ freshman season, the Red Raiders went just 4-6 in the COVID-19-shortened season. It was the fifth year in a row that the program had compiled a losing record and the fourth time in five years that the program had been below .500 in the regular season.
But starting in 2021, the year that his original Texas Tech head coach, Matt Wells, was fired mid-season, the Red Raiders began to turn the tide. Going 7-6, Tech won the Liberty Bowl and started a string of four winning seasons in a row, a stretch that is still active.
