Texas Tech football player Bryce Ramirez poised to complete remarkable comeback

A year ago last week, Bryce Ramirez was discussing his unlikely ascent as a Texas Tech football player: Being told to stick around after a walk-on tryout. Working his way up to a role on special teams. Earning a scholarship. Finally, at the beginning of his fourth season, cracking the depth chart on defense.

"It's definitely been a long journey, but I love everything about it," Ramirez said in August 2022. "Definitely a story of perseverance. I feel like it'll inspire others to do the same thing. If I can do it, anybody can do it."

Little did Ramirez know that anything he'd done to inspire someone to that point could pale in comparison to what he's accomplished in the past year.

When Texas Tech opens the 2023 season Saturday at Wyoming, Ramirez will be suited up and in the two-deep again with the Red Raiders. For many, that seemed inconceivable when the Tech edge rusher suffered a devastating injury, the sort that makes television producers not show a replay, in Tech's third game last season at North Carolina State.

When 240-pound linebacker Krishon Merriweather dove for a ball carrier, Merriweather's weight crashed into his teammate's lower left leg. Ramirez said his tibia was broken in three places and his fibula in two.

"I didn't realize how bad it was," he said recently. "I knew it was broken. I knew I wasn't going to be able to get up, and then I heard the NC State sideline. They were like, 'Oh, my god. Oh, my god.' "

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Ramirez spent five nights hospitalized in Raleigh, North Carolina, and underwent two surgeries. One of the positives, Joey McGuire said months later, was that Ramirez suffered no nerve or muscle damage. That gave him a better prognosis, the Tech coach said, than other players who have dealt with similarly gruesome leg injuries, such as NFL quarterback Alex Smith.

Not that anyone could know that right away.

"That night, seeing the injury, I was concerned he'd walk again, or at least walk normally," defensive coordinator Tim DeRuyter said this week. "There was a concern whether he'd be able to keep his lower leg. It was that traumatic of an injury.

"But he got excellent medical care ... and on his end, he was not going to be denied."

Texas Tech football player Bryce Ramirez followed his mother's wishes

The college football world might never have gotten to know Bryce Ramirez had his mother, Alice Ramirez, not prodded him not to give up on football. Bryce made up his mind early to attend Texas Tech, but not necessarily to play football. Going to a major university with his friends and being a student was his plan.

"I always wanted to come here," Ramirez said in a 2021 interview with the Avalanche-Journal. "It was like my dream school as a kid growing up. I always rooted for Tech seeing them on TV in different sports."

Tim Tadlock's teams, even more so than Kliff Kingsbury's, captured his attention.

"Growing up, I was a baseball fan," Ramirez said, "and Tech's always been good at baseball. Always seeing them in the College World Series and stuff like that, super regionals, so I was like, 'They're winners.' As a kid, you like winners."

Ramirez pitched. "I wasn't crazy good," he said, "but I could do a little something." He drew some recruiting interest in football and baseball. Not from any of the big schools, though. The programs that contacted him were an assortment of NCAA Division IIs, Division IIIs, NAIA and junior colleges.

He made peace with giving up sports and going to Tech.

"But my mom was like, 'You have talent. You shouldn't waste it. Just give it a shot. If you don't make it, you don't have to try out again, but just give it a shot', " Ramirez remembers her telling him. "She just believed in me."

A high percentage of college football players who start out as walk-ons and end up playing are preferred walk-ons. A college coach had sized them up as talented, a notch below the prospects given scholarship offers in high school, but good enough to recruit.

That was not Ramirez's route to joining the Red Raiders. He came to one of the open tryouts, a football casting call. In the company of other hopefuls, Ramirez ran sprints, did some linebacker stuff and a few ball drills.

"Nothing too crazy," he said. "Just seeing if you were able to move side to side laterally."

He showed he could. When the group was dismissed, Preston Pehrson, the director of recruiting on Matt Wells' Tech staff, told four players to stick around. He earned the respect, too, of Dave Scholz and David Yost, who were Wells' strength and conditioning coach and offensive coordinator.

"I talked to coach Yost afterwards," Ramirez remembered. "He was impressed. He always looked out for me. Even though he's gone, when he was here, he was always looking out for me and showed support for me."

Ramirez was on his way. He joined the program in January 2019. By August 2020, then-linebackers coach Kevin Cosgrove singled him out as a promising young player with "a tremendous motor." In August 2021, Ramirez and three other walk-ons were placed on scholarship. And in September 2022, he made his first college start. It was the game at NC State.

Special night at Jones AT&T Stadium coming for Texas Tech football player Bryce Ramirez

Tech outside linebackers coach C.J. Ah You and defensive coordinator Tim DeRuyter both became emotional recently when discussing Ramirez's comeback. Ah You, a big, strong former NFL player, looked down at the ground and took 20 seconds to compose himself when asked about Ramirez's comeback.

DeRuyter, when asked about it this week, paused mid-answer and needed a moment himself.

"If there's one guy on our team that you had to say, 'Which guy's The Brand?' it's probably Bryce Ramirez. He just embodies everything we want to do, who we're about," DeRuyter said, then looked down and collected his emotion. "And it's been really impressive to see him come back. The work he's put in to get where he is today, I'm really excited that he's going to get close to where he was a year ago."

Ramirez received an optimistic outlook early on.

"The doctor said it was a clean break," he said, " 'so you don't really have much to worry about. All you have to do is rehab it back and you'll be fine. You should be able to play.' "

Six to eight months was the time frame initially expected for recovery.

"Then when we got back, it wasn't really clicking that I was going to be OK until probably a month and a half in, I was able to walk on my own," Ramirez said. "And that's when I was like, 'OK, I can do this. I'll be fine.' "

Next week, one of the most anticipated Texas Tech home openers in years will unfold when the Red Raiders host No. 15 Oregon. For many Tech fans, the last image of Ramirez in Jones AT&T Stadium was the week after he got hurt. ESPN showed him in the Masked Rider lobby, cheering teammate Reggie Pearson's interception in the Tech-Texas game.

Ramirez had his leg propped up. He was off his feet until November. Now he's playing again.

"Even when it comes down to going into the Jones for the first time," Ramirez said, "I haven't really stepped back and processed that and realized how far I've come. It's crazy to think about."

In a self-assessment, Ramirez told DeRuyter he felt about 90% of his previous performance level.

"I know come Saturday, with the adrenaline, his 90%'s going to be over a hundred percent," DeRuyter said, his serious face switching to a smile, "so he'll play like a Red Raider."

This article originally appeared on Lubbock Avalanche-Journal: Texas Tech football player Bryce Ramirez poised to complete remarkable comeback