Texas Tech LB Jacob Rodriguez Watches Tape With Athlon Sports

The 2026 linebacker class is a fascinating one, just as linebackers are becoming more important to NFL teams with the increase in nickel, big nickel, and dime base defenses. When you have two linebackers on the field as a best-case scenario, and one more often than not in some defenses, your linebackers had better be able to do everything required of the position at a very high level, whether it's blowing up run fits, disrupting from the edge and as a blitzer, and winning in coverage.

Most analysts have Ohio State's Sonny Styles as the top 'backer in this class, and that makes sense. Styles is a 6-foot-5, 245-pound athletic alien who used to play safety, now patrols the defense as an expert linebacker, and has more juice as a pass-rusher than people may think.

Second on the list for a lot of people - and also worthy of a first-round grade - is Texas Tech's Jacob Rodriquez. In 2025, for a Red Raiders defense that came out of nowhere to dominate, the 6-foot-1, 231-pound Rodriguez had 94 solo tackles, 70 stops, nine tackles for loss, seven forced fumbles, one sack and six pressures in just 40 pass-rushing snaps, and in coverage, he allowed 55 catches on 67 targets for 550 yards, 368 yards after the catch, two touchdowns, four interceptions, three pass breakups, and an opponent passer rating of 85.9.

Not bad for a high-school quarterback who played linebacker at the college level for less than three full seasons.

Rodriguez is also highly athletic - he proved that on tape and at the scouting combine - but what really sets him apart is his awareness and ability to key and diagnose as the play begins... and sometimes before the play begins.

Which, of course, made him an ideal candidate to watch tape and talk ball with Athlon Sports. Doug Farrar recently sat down with Rodriguez to go over it all, and he was able to do so thanks to the Rodriguez's involvement with USAA's and the NFL's Salute to Service initiative. This means quite a bit to the Rodriguez family, as Emma, Jacob's wife, is a Black Hawk helicopter pilot with the United States Army, and is preparing for deployment as Jacob is preparing for his NFL future.

And with that, let's talk football and life with Jacob Rodriguez.

A family that serves

DF: Your college football journey is interesting. As well as you diagnose as a linebacker, the fact that you've not played linebacker that long is fascinating to me. You began as a walk-on quarterback, switched to linebacker, became a team captain, and one of the most decorated players in Texas Tech history, which is saying something. Your inspiration through it all has really been your high school sweetheart and now wife, Emma.

She went to West Point, is an active duty Blackhawk helicopter pilot in the army, and she'll be deployed in a few months. She's preparing for that as you're preparing for your NFL transition. How has she been that rock for you, and correspondingly, what is Salute to Service meant to you?

JR: Yeah, it's everything. Being able to support her, and being able to be in a position where... you know, she's very high-performing, and I get to watch her do her thing and just be a supporter on the sideline. It's unbelievable, but on the flip side of that, having somebody like that in your corner who kind of knows what what kind of you're going through with high emotions and the high efficiency you need to have.

Being in that position with her is unbelievable. And, yeah, being able to be a part of Salute to Service with USAA is, I mean, that's helped us a lot, too. We got to hang out in a flight simulator, and she got to show me around her life for a little bit. Doing stuff like that really gets you to dive into what your spouse does for work. Just being able to be there to support her along the way. And so now, coming up for this next week, she'll get to be right next to me, and experience kind of what's going on for my future, and I can't wait to do the same for her.

DF: That's awesome. So, what made you decide to switch to linebacker, and what was that early transition like? You had a quote about the start of the switch that I read where you said, "I had no clue what I was doing; I was screwing up left and right." You obviously got the hang of it, and you had a lot of colleges asking you to switch, but what was the actual process like? How long did it take you for it to really click in, like, "Okay, now I'm a linebacker."

JR: Yeah, when I first got to Texas Tech, and when they asked me to play the position... like you said I was messing up left and right. I was doing everything wrong. I was just running to the ball just trying to be the best teammate I could, because I really didn't know what I was doing very much. So it was nice to finally start to learn how to play a position and learn how to study it. It took me about a full year before I could really believe in myself and realize that man, I have a future doing this, and I could probably do this at a high level moving forward.

DF: I want to ask you about this Texas Tech defense, because it was something else to watch. In 2025, you guys went from allowing 34.8 points per game the year before, which ranked 122nd in the FBS, to 11.8 points per game in 2025, which ranked third. There's you, there's [edge-rushers] David Bailey and Romello Height, [interior defensive linemen] Lee Hunter and Skyler Gill Howard, whose tape I really like as kind of an underrated guy... but on and on, there were just so many defensive standouts just in this draft class. We're not even getting to the guys will be there next year or the year after. What was it like to play in that defense last year where everything just seemed to click?

JR: It was so much fun, and I think a lot of it had to do with the people off the field. All the guys that you named and then, all the guys that stayed and are going to have a great year this year. We were able to create good relationships in the building and really want to be around each other as brothers and friends. We got to go out there and play football. And so, we all kind of bought into that mentality of, we have a lot of work to do, but we're gonna have fun while we do it.

I think you play your best football, and you play your most energized football, when that happens. And so, you know, Coach Shiel Wood, our defensive coordinator, he made a huge point for us that effort is not an option, and that's something that we're going to preach all the time. That's kind of the standard, you know, that's the floor for us.

We got there and played great defense. Obviously, you have unbelievable talents like the guys that we had up front and the back end that you can kind of just, you know, smile because those guys are about to go to work. And so, it was unbelievable. A lot of fun this year. It was very special to all of us, you know, obviously on the football field, but then on a personal level, just all the people in the locker room were were amazing and tremendous to be around.

Time to watch some tape!

DF: Nice. Well, as we said, we're gonna watch some tape, and I'm really looking forward to this. I wanted to start with your interception against BYU. This is one of many examples of how well you diagnose and react. I think you guys are in Cover-2 on this play, and you're moving everyone around pre snap. What are you telling everyone?

JR: We actually have a formation that when the tight end shifts over, we diagnosed that the receiver to the boundary is off the line. He's coming in motion. So, they actually create an unbalanced formation for us. That tight end is going to be "dead," which means he can't go out for a pass. We have to check the coverage and check the front end to where we get ourselves into a good play. With them being in this unbalanced formation, we've got to move everybody over to match up numbers.

We have to spin the coverage, spin the front. And then from there, my responsibility on this is just - we're kind of playing to my coverage. And then there comes a point in the play, in every play, where you've just got to play football. You've got to read the quarterback's vision and know where help is. I was able to, with a great pass rush and a lot of pressure in his face, make him get off his spot and mirror him and make a play on the ball.

DF: There's Lee Hunter getting through to [BYU quarterback] Bear Bachmeier. Lee Hunter is one of my favorite guys in this class. Just overall, I love watching his tape as well. But he comes through, and then you're getting everyone over, and then you are rolling to that side. And then you cross face, and you're in position for this interception. What did you see here that made you think, I've got to roll back, because this guy is he's a mobile quarterback and he's going to throw. I've got to be there for this ball?

JR: Yeah, he is a mobile quarterback. He's a freshman, and he's super-athletic. With our pass rush getting there, we kind of got it cut off. But you're thinking everybody to the field, you know, that that sprint out to the field, you know the ball is coming out quick. Everything's going out to the sideline. So especially being that boundary player, you've got to get on your horse and run. When he when he able to break a tackle and kind of flip the field, you've got to just get in a good position to be able to make a play.

And, yeah, that was a special one. That was a huge game for us there in Lubbock with [College GameDay] and everybody there. So, yeah, that was a lot of fun.

DF: Because a lot of guys that key and diagnose, and people talk about that with you a lot... you've been able to reduce the extra steps and the extra movement. You seem very condensed in your movements and very technique-sound in what you're doing, which... I mean, you're fast anyway. But it kind of makes you look faster than you actually are.

JR: Yeah, I appreciate that. That's something you definitely work on. It's something that you try to do your best to play in your cylinder. And that's how you can read and react as best you can. It helps, especially as I talk about all the time, growing up to play different sports and not specializing. You get a bunch of different things. You get to practice and just do it with a lot of fun. And so, yeah, that definitely helps playing other sports and just getting different practice about moving your body the right way.

DF: You're a track guy, too, right?

JR: I was track, baseball, soccer, tennis, wrestling, every every sport growing up. Everything Icould.

DF: That's good. Play two is your forced fumble against Arizona State, one of two you had in that game, which prevented a touchdown by quarterback Jeff Sims. The first thing that stands out to me here is, you've got eyes on Sims the whole time even as you engage with the left tackle, Josh Atkins, and you break off so quickly to get to Sims. And then you're not just looking for a tackle here. You want the ball. So can you take me through your process here? I don't know if this is technically a stack-and-shed against the left tackle, but you're on him and then you're just you're out fast. What is your process here?

JR: A lot of this has to do with down-and-distance, and where you are on the field. So obviously, we're on the goal line, and you have certain responsibilities and certain defenses where you're playing a certain gap. And you've got to be free in your gap. [But] you've got to place ball over blocker, though. You don't want to just go up there and get yourself blocked and be out of the play. So if the block is out of phase and it's not going to be hit in your gap, you've got to go chase the ball down.

And then here, you can see he has the ball in his inside arm. You know, a lot of people do that if they're right-handed - [they have] the ball in the right hand, no matter what. And so, you know, his ball is in his inside arm. So it's just a good punch for me. You know, we're on the goal line [and it's hard to] be really hard-tackling from the side to get a knockback tackle and not let him get in. So it's more just desperation, and trying to get that ball every single chance you get, especially on the goal line. When you have a big guy like him playing quarterback on the ball. It's not too hard for him to get two yards or a yard. And so, yeah, you just got to try to make a play.

DF: I was going to say, you weren't head-up on him.

You had seven forced fumbles last year, which is kind of nuts. Seven forced fumbles and four interceptions. You're kind of a turnover machine. But overall, and three forced fumbles a year before, but seven last year. Can you summarize your technique when it comes to that? Because you've got them in a lot of different ways.

JR: There is technique to it, but it's more so all the other things. It's getting to the football. It's having proper leverage on the football. It's having your teammates who you can trust, and running to the football to be able to pick it up. There's a lot more that goes into it. It needs to be like a precise strike and timed punch to get that ball out. And a lot of it is, you have to feel how to play, and how to move your body around the right way.

And it just takes practice. You know, it takes years and years of practice. And [I'm] still trying to learn. But you've got to do everything you can to try to get that ball out.

DF: In today's NFL, there's so much big nickel and dime-based stuff. The Seahawks played dime on 40 of their 72 snaps in the Super Bowl. So the linebacker's responsibilities are different these days, especially when he's the only linebacker on the field over and over. Why are you going to make the most of whatever NFL schemes you're in? But especially when you're in those lighter boxes, because that's obviously where linebackers are incredibly important. Now, if it's two linebackers or one linebacker, you kind of have to reinforce those boxes. And you do it a lot. But I just wanted to get your take on why that's so important.

JR: Yeah, I think it's important. It's just how you play good defense. You know, you try to give yourself the best advantage you can. And if you can play good defense with a light box and help yourself in the passing game, you're good to feed the ball to those big guys up front. I think being able to play multiple spots and being able to play multiple different techniques is something you need to play as a linebacker in this age.

You need to be able to cover. You need to be able to overlap gaps in the run game. You need to be able to do all these things. And it just takes practice. It takes time. It takes work. And it takes trusting the guys around you.

DF: Jacob Rodriguez, linebacker from Texas Tech. We look forward to seeing you quite possibly find out your new home on next Thursday in the first round. Could very well be. Best of luck when that comes around and enjoy the process, man.

JR: Yes, sir. Thank you.

Copyright 2026 The Arena Group, Inc. All Rights Reserved

This story was originally published April 16, 2026 at 7:55 AM.