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Inside David Bailey's fast-paced first few months with Texas Tech football
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- Inside David Bailey's fast-paced first few months with Texas Tech football
Give David Bailey a healthy and productive season, and the highly touted new edge rusher on the Texas Tech football team could be a day one or day two NFL Draft choice next spring.
A CBS Sports mock draft published this week has him going No. 23 overall, complimenting his "lightning quick first step" that "would keep offensive lines' head spinning on third downs." Pro Football Focus, in a piece published last month, ranks him among the top 10 returning edge defenders. The gist of the analysis: He's one of the better speed rushers in the class with "a wicked first step" and "some very nice bend" but could use some work defending the run.
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First things first, though: Bailey didn't enjoy much winning during his three years at Stanford . The Cardinal have gone 3-9 four years in a row. He has a chance to do a lot more winning with Texas Tech , which opens the season hosting Arkansas-Pine Bluff at 6:30 p.m. Saturday, Aug. 30.
How to handle the NFL draft expectations?
"Just keeping the main thing, the main thing," Bailey said recently. "Probably just going out and doing the best I can this year. I think my main priority's just trying to help this team go as far as possible, because I do think we have the opportunity to do something big."
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Of the 22 transfers Tech's taken in since last season, Bailey's arguably the most heralded, certainly so from an NFL-future standpoint. The 6-foot-3, 252-pound senior was a national top-100 recruit coming out of Santa Ana (Calif.) Mater Dei, the only high school to produce three Heisman Trophy winners (quarterbacks John Huarte, Matt Leinart and Bryce Young ).
Over the past three years, Bailey's done nothing to diminish his status, racking up 111 tackles, including 23 tackles for loss, 14 1/2 sacks and 7 forced fumbles.
"To not have gone through a full spring practice with us, he has gotten up to speed quickly," Tech defensive coordinator Shiel Wood said. "He's got a great skillset in terms of coming off the edge.
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"He's strong in the run game as an edge defender. He's done a great job from a pass-rush standpoint, and couldn't be more happy with his work ethic and his alignment with our team coming in. They've done a great job welcoming him to the family as well."
Stanford transfer David Bailey makes his debut at Texas Tech's spring football practice, Tuesday, April 8, 2025, at the Womble Football Center.
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Lubbock's famous for its dust storms in the spring. Bailey experienced an unrelated whirlwind of his own, transferring from Stanford to Tech at the start of April.
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"It was definitely hectic," he said, "but I think people like the support staff — Q (Quintin Jordan, Tech director of football operations) was one of the main people that helped me get acclimated — did a great job of helping me find a spot to live and then also get in contact with my teachers. The football stuff kind of took care of itself in terms of getting on the field and playing and just running around."
When Stanford dismissed coach Troy Taylor on March 25, Bailey took advantage of the special 30-day window for players of fired coaches to have their names entered into the NCAA transfer portal outside regular periods.
The spring window this year was April 16-25. Stanford's winter quarter ended on March 21. Bailey, son of a retired biochemist, graduated with a bachelor's degree in STS: Science, Technology and Society. He used the fired-coaches exemption to sign with Tech on April 5 and practiced with the Red Raiders for the first time on April 8.
NCAA rules require athletes to be enrolled to take part in team activities. Tech offers shorter-format courses within full semesters. Bailey said he completed 12 credit hours of Texas Tech classes after his April arrival.
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"Teachers definitely had some grace on me," he said. "I did make up all the work, but I obviously missed those first couple of weeks, so teachers had some grace in terms or letting me make up that missed work."
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Bailey said he'd already given serious thought to leaving Stanford before Taylor's dismissal. If memory serves, he said, he'd notified Cardinal general manager Andrew Luck of that intention beforehand. Having graduated, Bailey said he was back home in Orange County when the ax fell.
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Predictably, Bailey said he was "bombarded with options in terms of all the colleges that were available." Admittedly, Bailey said, Tech wasn't on his radar right away.
"But that's also because I wasn't aware of what they were doing in the portal," he said. "So the process was basically just searching and sifting through schools, getting different people's opinions on schools. Then they hit me up, and I started realizing what they were doing in the portal."
Part of the reason for Tech optimism is its all-transfers front four: Bailey and Romello Height from Georgia Tech on the edge, Lee Hunter from Central Florida and Skyler Gill-Howard from Northern Illinois on the interior. Outside linebackers coach C.J. Ah You has Bailey and Height in his room.
"Great additions to the room," Ah You said in mid-August. "I think there was a lot of unknown when they first got here, see how they were going to mesh with everybody, but from day one they have bought in, and all they do is work. Those two guys love football, and it's very contagious with the roster."
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Bailey has bounced from southern California in high school to northern California for his first four years of college and now West Texas. It's a change in culture, and he hopes a change in football fortune. Tech's planning to put up a lot more than the three-win seasons he's known, and Bailey's looking forward to seeing the support that comes with it.
"Lubbock, I feel like they have a good community," he said. "I feel like the community does a good job of rallying in support of the Texas Tech program in general. It differs drastically from what I experienced at Stanford. Just two different spots. Two great spots, though, still."
This article originally appeared on Lubbock Avalanche-Journal: Inside David Bailey's fast-paced first months with Texas Tech football
