Texas Tech football secondary coach Marcel Yates has spent nearly his entire 23-year career overseeing college defensive backs, so he's worked with experienced groups and inexperienced groups.

This coming season, the Texas Tech secondary tilts to the latter. Gone are safety Dadrion Taylor-Demerson, cornerbacks Malik Dunlap and Rayshad Williams — all multi-year starters — and safety Tyler Owens, who moved into the starting lineup last year.

Now it's back to teaching the kids.

"As a defensive backs coach, it's challenging no matter who you have," Yates said Monday, "so just get used to it, right? For me, it's all about guys understanding what they're doing and then playing hard and fast."

As Tech starts the second week of spring football, Yates has a two-deep taking shape. Four corners are leading their group: Seniors Bralyn Lux and Devynn Cromwell and sophomores Maurion Horn and Jalon Peoples.

They have a point of emphasis.

"Looking at the last two seasons, you want your corners to be more physical than what we were," Yates said. "Whether that's getting off blocks, whether that's (defending) the run game, whatever it may be. I feel like this group, we have some physical corners."

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Lux made eight starts last year. Cromwell just arrived from the University of Guelph, about an hour west of Toronto. Horn was the highest-rated signee in Tech's 2022 class. Peoples signed the same year, and Tech coach Joey McGuire says Peoples was the most pleasant surprise of any player in winter conditioning workouts.

"They're going hard. They're smart players. They're physical," Yates said, "They're still learning, but I always think this: In order for you to have a good defense, your corners have to tackle. And those four guys, I think, aren't afraid to stick their head up in there."

At boundary safety, Tech has Julien (C.J.) Baskerville backed by redshirt freshman Marcus Ramon-Edwards and freshman transfer Javeon Wilcox from TCU. At free safety, sophomores Chapman Lewis and Jordan Sanford played last season as true freshmen backups. At star, a hybrid safety-outside linebacker, sophomore Brenden Jordan and junior A.J. McCarty are the first two, and Mike Dingle was moved there recently from inside linebacker.

Lewis and Sanford are competing for the spot vacated by Taylor-Demerson, who started 37 games over five years.

"Those two guys played a lot last year as true freshmen," Yates said. "They're both athletic. They both can fly around. They're still learning, but they're making plays."

Baskerville and Jordan began last season one-two at star. Baskerville moved to boundary safety at the start of November, working through a broken wrist and a strained knee ligament to start 10 games. Jordan started five.

Now Jordan is competing at star with McCarty. Jordan has the advantage of having played the position all last season. McCarty sat out after he transferred from Baylor, so rather than doing game preparation with the Tech defense in practice, he spent most of his time with the scout team.

"You have that battle, that one-two battle," Yates said. "Each day, it seems like one guy may have a better day than the other, but Brenden is getting better. I think he understands it now with this being year two. He's making some plays out there."

Once McCarty was cleared to play, the next question for the Tech defensive staff was where to put the 6-foot, 195-pound junior from Brownwood.

"The strength with A.J.," Yates said, "is he can actually play all five (secondary positions). We just felt like with the way he moves — he's physical; he can blitz — he kind of fits that star role. And it gives us a good two-deep at each spot."

This article originally appeared on Lubbock Avalanche-Journal: Texas Tech football assistant Marcel Yates begins rebuild in secondary