Recruiting on the South Plains | 2014 OL Robert Castaneda Commits to Texas Tech

PLAYER: Robert Castaneda

POSITION: Offensive Line
HEIGHT: 6'5"
WEIGHT: 315
FORTY: 5.36
HIGH SCHOOL: Round Rock (Round Rock, TX)
VIDEO: Clip 1
RECRUITING SERVICES: Rivals 5.5 | Scout | ESPN 75 | 24/7 Sports 80
CUMULATIVE RANKING: 0.8307
VTM PROFILE DATE: June 16, 2013

OFFERS | Houston, Kansas St., Purdue, and Texas Tech

STATS | Nope.

THE PLAYER SPEAKS | Things are starting to work out where there is at least one free article, so thanks to ESPN, we get a little perspective. To catch you up, Castaneda was originally committed to Kansas State, but Texas Tech continued to recruit him and as of yesterday Castaneda has committed to Texas Tech. I've never cared about winning battles or beating schools for recruits. I don't fist pump or get sad and/or depressed when players flip and I also don't consider recruits to be players for Texas Tech until they're actually on campus and practicing.

At this point in the process, Castaneda is committed to Texas Tech, so I write about him. I also like writing about things like this because it offers a challenge in finding information about these players. In any event, here's Castaneda talking about decommitting from K-State:

"I knew as soon as I decommitted that I was ready to go ahead and commit to the place that I love being at," Castaneda said. "I called the coaches after the camp as over and told them I was ready to be a Red Raider."

And then Castaneda talked about the reason:

"Tech is really close to home and Kansas State is 12 hours away," Castaneda said. "That’s a killer. It’s too far. Kansas State really treated me nice and they have a great staff. It’s got nothing to do with their program. It’s just too far. My family can’t handle having to drive out there every Saturday for my games."

Well, that makes sense and it's a nice thing to say. I don't think that kids want to move that far away if they can, which is why I always thought that Texas Tech was really the perfect spot. Far enough away from home, but not too far away.

SCOUTING REPORT | So I sorta think that Castaneda is destined to play inside. I think he'll be terrific inside actually. First things first, I think that Castaneda already has sufficient size to play inside, so that's not a problem. I think that Castaneda also seals his man really well and I can totally see that playing well inside. This DMN College article thinks that Castaneda is one of the top 5, number 4 actually, in the state of Texas:

A three-star prospect, according to rivals.com, Castaneda committed to Kansas State on Mar. 7. The 6-foot-5, 318-pounder turned down an offer from Texas Tech and has drawn interest from Alabama, Baylor, LSU and Texas A&M.

The number five player just committed to TCU this past week, so there's that.

I do think that Castaneda could play tackle, but he just seems to have a really nice body type for a guard. And in watching the distinction between Castaneda and last week offensive line commit, Justin Murphy, you can see that Murphy would play really well as a tackle because his pass protection is already so darned good. It was a revelation to watch Murphy play, but Castaneda doesn't seem to have that right now. He could certainly develop, but I think he has a lot of good characteristics. I also like Castaneda's mobility a bit better if I am thinking between the two of them.

Robert, welcome to Texas Tech and Git Your Guns Up!

2014 Commits