Rivals Analysis: Alex Hogan and Brandon Joseph commit to Tech

Texas Tech’s recruiting efforts has been one of the more pleasant surprises of the summer and the Red Raiders continued their success on Monday with a pair of commitments in three-star defensive backs Alex Hogan and Brandon Joseph. Both have been highly-recruited prospects and bring some versatility to Texas Tech’s secondary for years to come. The Red Raiders now have 15 total recruits in 2019 and six on the defense as the look for continued improvement on that side of the ball.

Hogan in particular is a nice pickup. Since Texas Tech got serious about its recruitment of him, he was drawn to the potential of at least getting some form of significant playing time early in his career. The staff was given an assist by 2018 signee Ta’Zhawn Henry, who was Hogan’s teammate up until last season at Houston-Lamar. Hogan has shown this offseason that he’s taken another step forward with his ability to cover man-to-man and he likes to play a physical brand of football even though he’s not the biggest cornerback prospect. Joseph is more likely a safety prospect with a lot of natural ability and a slightly thicker build than Hogan but likes to play the role of ball-hawk. The exciting thing about him is that he could play closer to the line or even lineup on the perimeter to push a corner inside, disguise zone blitzes, or play as a single-high centerfielder over the top.

In Joseph’s case, it’s Arizona. The Wildcats were in his Top 3 and former Texas A&M head coach Kevin Sumlin probably thought that he had a better foot in the door than anyone else having been in Joseph’s backyard prior to his move to Tucson. Considering Sumlin is still trying to mine Texas for recruits, missing out on one in his old stomping grounds stings a little bit more. When it comes to Hogan, Iowa State is the big loser, having missed out on a highly-ranked prospect to a conference opponent. Despite the optimism around the program after last season’s success and the commitment of head coach Matt Campbell sticking around, Iowa State is still working to get higher-end prospects to completely buy-in on a more consistent basis.

The luster around the Houston-Lamar program isn’t quite where it was in 2018, when Al’Vonte Woodard, Anthony Cook, D’Shawn Jamison and Henry headlined the Texans’ prospect list, but there are still a couple of top talents that could look Tech’s way with the added efforts of Hogan this fall. 2020 defensive back Joseph Wilson and ’20 tight end Reggie Brown to will likely become highly-recruited prospects by next spring and could be influenced by Hogan, who has become more and more of a charismatic personality over the last few years.

College Station High School has a couple of interesting prospects as well after a state title run last season, but Joseph’s 7-on-7 team, Texas Air Raid is an amalgamation of College Station and A&M Consolidated prospects and he could bend the ear of a few of his spring teammates to consider Tech more seriously when the time comes. 2020 Consolidated prospects Nate Floyd and Brian Darby are going to be special talents and would listen to what Joseph had to say to them.