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Wes Welker came into the Texas Tech football program and later the NFL without fanfare. He didn’t sign with Tech until nine days after national signing day in 2000, because that’s when the Red Raiders offered him a scholarship. Then after a prolific college career, he went into the NFL as an undrafted free agent.
Undersized and without eye-popping speed, he became the guy who lived, ate, breathed and slept football — unless a defender shut him down, that is.
“If I ever got covered, I couldn’t go to sleep at night,” Welker said, “because that’s all I thought about: What can I do the next day if he does that to me again? And having a plan for it and then trial and error, trial and error, to where I knew exactly what I was going to do. I think it was that focus and relentless attack to really understand something so fully to where you just made it happen in a split second.”
Welker made the self-assessment Friday night from a stage at the Overton Hotel & Conference Center. The occasion was the induction ceremony for the Texas Tech football Ring of Honor. He was one of three inductees. Also inducted were Andre Tillman, an all-America tight end on Tech’s 11-1 Gator Bowl champion of 1973, and Thomas Howard, an all-America linebacker on the Red Raiders’ 10-2 Southwest Conference co-champion of 1976.
Welker played 12 years in the NFL, Howard nine and Tillman five.
Related: The Red Raiders at 1,000: Outside linebacker Thomas Howard
A video tribute to Welker included comments from former teammates Kliff Kingsbury from Tech and Tom Brady from the New England Patriots.
Dana Holgorsen and Art Briles, both of whom coached Welker as assistants on Mike Leach’s Tech staff, were in attendance.
Briles said Welker “changed the game from the inside receiver position.”
“Honestly, a once-in-a-generation player, I think, for the way he’s impacted…
Source link : https://sports.yahoo.com/texas-tech-football-ring-honor-090903907.html
Author : Lubbock Avalanche-Journal
Publish date : 2024-09-14 09:09:03
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