Is more than Texas Tech football in Malcolm Simmons' future?
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Texas Tech football coach Joey McGuire hopes Malcolm Simmons can be one of the Red Raiders’ next big-play producers. The Tech staff didn’t sign the former Auburn wide receiver out of the NCAA transfer portal for him not to pose a threat to Big 12 defenses.
There’s a chance Simmons could help another coaching staff on campus even before then.
“He can fly,” McGuire said this past week at a Red Raider Club event in Amarillo. “If it works out, he might even try to do a little track with coach (Wes) Kittley in the outdoor season, if it all works out.”
Tech lists Simmons at 6-foot and 180 pounds. He caught 40 passes for 451 yards and 3 touchdowns as an Auburn true freshman in 2024 and caught 25 passes for 457 yards and 3 TDs in 2025. The Red Raiders, one-third of the way through spring practice after Saturday, March 28, are looking at Simmons as an outside receiver, a possible successor to Caleb Douglas or Reggie Virgil.
Competing for Benjamin Russell High School, a Class 6A program in Alexander City, Alabama, Simmons was a three-time state champion in the long jump and a two-time state champion in the high jump.
Kittley said McGuire brought up the subject of Simmons possibly doing track and field during a conversation over lunch at Tech’s Cash Family Sports Nutrition Center. Kittley called it “a possibility” and one he’s open to, though he said they’ve not discussed it since.
“It’s actually an easier call probably indoors than it is out, to tell you the truth,” Kittley said, “because they haven’t started spring ball while we’re doing all of our indoor (season). But I think he got here in January, right, so I’m assuming they wanted him in the weight room and to just really be a part of it and see what they’ve got.
“But I would love to see him out. I told Joey, ‘Yeah, definitely we can talk about it when you get done with spring ball.’ “
Two years ago, Simmons cleared 7 feet in the high jump and went 24-11 1/2 in the long jump, an Alabama High School Athletic Association record. During the indoor season that year, he scored 26 points at the state meet by winning those two events and finishing third in the triple jump.
At last year’s Big 12 outdoor championships, 7-0 would have been good for fifth. In the long jump, 24-11 1/2 would have gotten second, though it’s important to note each of the top six marks was into negative wind. Also, 7-0 and 24-11 1/2 are what Simmons did on his best day, not week-in and week-out.
More considerations: After the Tech football spring game on April 17, the track and field team has only two regular-season meets left before the Big 12 outdoor championships May 14-16 at Arizona. And Simmons would have to quickly show enough to make the conference-meet roster, which is capped at 32 athletes. Tech has more than 40 men.
Competing in the 60-meter hurdles in the Big 12 indoor championships, Tech linebacker Mike Dingle finished fourth in 2023 and seventh in 2024, scoring points. Former Tech running back/return man Ivory McCann and wide receiver Carlos Francis competed with the track team early in Kittley’s tenure.
This article originally appeared on Lubbock Avalanche-Journal: Texas Tech football’s Malcolm Simmons could be a two-sport athlete
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