Looking Towards 2014 | The Texas Tech Offense

What? We can't even enjoy 2013?

Someone had asked for a look at the positions from a standpoint of who are the current seniors and who will be here next year. Since I like to do things and thanks for TTpilk645 for putting together a spreadsheet to make this sort of thing easily sortable, we've got a look at who the seniors are for this year's team, but it's also good to have an eye looking towards 2014 and beyond. To make this a bit easier to consume, I've divided the posts into the offense and a second post with the defense and special teams that should post later this week.

Even though the title to the post is for 2014, I do think it does give a pretty good look of where the experience is for this team (hint -- it's on the defense) this year. Still, college football is a game where coaches are always churning the roster and it gives you a pretty decent idea of where things stand looking toward 2014 and beyond.

Offensive Line

This is good news, right? The idea is that the offensive line this year is young, but there's a ton youth. In looking at all of these, of the position groups with a handful of moving parts (i.e. five different positions) I think that the offensive line sets up the best moving forward. There will be a ton of options this year, even though this group was a bit decimated with injuries during the spring, but that was temporary. There are lots of options, and moving forward, there are a lot of options.

The transfers of Blake Snider and Joey White are really welcome additions to this group and were a welcome surprise when the roster came out. I have no idea how good they are, although I know that they both played to some extent, so they're not penciled in as starters or anything like that, but they'll certainly add depth in 2012 and beyond.

I'd also add that with the true freshmen, I think Texas Tech has a couple of elite athletes that could eventually play left tackle, who are Joshua Outlaw and Cody Hayes. The hope is that one of them can work out at that spot eventually, but the both have the athleticism to play there. That's a good thing.

Quarterback

This is the position group that concerns me the most beause there's just a lot of young players with no real upper-classmen for leadership. I suppose that will happen when you have a guy like Brewer that passes some of the veterans in Scotty Young and Jacob Karam on the roster.

The two newcomers are Baker Mayfield, who played at the same high school as Brewer, and Collin Bowen, from Randall and was a real dual threat quarterback. During the recruiting process, Collin's dad had emailed me and I politely told him that I couldn't communicate with potential recruits or their families, but if Collin ever did enroll at Texas Tech, to get back to me. Co-DC Mike Smith was apparently a big factor in Collin switching his commitment from Texas St. to Texas Tech as Collin felt that he could compete at the Division I level and in my mind, there's no doubt about that. The coaches are going to give him a shot at quarterback, but Collin could eventually play multiple spots. And don't sleep on Mayfield, he's more of a traditional spread quarterback, probably not the strongest arm, but he was more than good at Lake Travis. It's always strange how buys like Bowen and Mayfield don't get bigger offers. The same could be said about Hagen Hutchinson, from Stamford, who is playing at Midwestern St., but was the offensive and defensive MVP for Class 1A and led Stamford to a state title.

Long-term, everything seems fine, but I guess that depends on who gets the starts for this year and if a player eventually decides to transfer. Selfishly, I hope they all stay and compete for that spot. Anything can happen, but I understand the desire to get snaps and play.

Running Back

For the first time in what seems like a long time, there was no freshman running back. I'm actually okay with that as you can see, there are only three seniors and yes, I stuck Foster here, but as you all know he'll play both inside receiver and running back. Ontiveros, who I didn't recall playing during the spring, as he was recovering from an injury earlier in the 2012 year. And Talbott is a walk-on (hat-tip for sticking around as I know he's been here for a while).

The two juniors, are Williams and Middleton. Middleton could be redshirted, and he's already mentioned that this is a possibility. After that, you have a couple of sophomores in Washington and Hall. Hall is from Tyler JC and as you can tell from his size, probably more of a blocking black. I can't tell you a lot about Weh Weh, but I can point you to his YouTube and an article in the Houston Chronicle where in October he was the second leading rusher in his district. And I think White is the next big thing when Williams graduates.

So overall, this is a pretty good mix of seniors, juniors, sophomores and freshmen, but no true freshmen. That will be rectified next year as Justin Stockton and Demarcus Felton are both committed (we'll see, but I"m hopeful) and will add two smaller and quicker backs, similar to Washington.

Receiver

Last year, it seemed like Texas Tech lost a ton of seniors, which is why there is a bit of concern as to who is going to do what this year. Alex Torres, Austin Zouzalike, Darrin Moore, and Tyson Williams were big parts of the rotation last year. There's really only one significant senior on this team, Ward, with DeFrance having some nice spring games, and Fisher has seemingly battled back from injury more times than note.

Thirteen of the twenty-two or so receivers are underclassmen, but there's really good quality at the top with some of the guys that are just juniors. Marquez, Amaro and Corker have all been around. Hurla and Davis are relatively new, Davis was on the team last year and earned a scholarship, while Hurla is a JUCO transfer.

And then you have some sophomores, like Grant who is emerging and Derreck Edwards, who is still figuring things out. There's plenty of time, but his time is coming if he's going to make a move.

It does seem like the coaching staff did double-down with five freshmen that they brought in, P. Williams, Thompson, Moore, Polite-Bray and Cantrell. I'm still really excited about what Davis and Wheeler have the potential to do because they as athletic as anyone on the team, just had to learn the nuance of receiver.