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It was announced late last night that starting guard for Texas Tech, Beau Carpenter, was dismissed from the team for an unspecified violation of team rules (via LAJ). This is a pretty big detriment to an offensive line that is still pretty young overall. Texas Tech has plenty of options to replace Carpenter, but when Carpenter was out for a few games with a concussion there was no doubt that the offense simply played better when Carpenter was in the game, especially from a running perspective.
There are plenty of options to replace Carpenter, including Baylen Brown, who filled in for Carpenter when Carpenter was injured, and the often-injured Alfredo Morales as well as senior James Polk. I think those are the most viable options for the guard spot, excluding any of the true freshmen from the 2013 class. The LAJ piece mentions that Cody Hayes and Josh Outlaw are slated for guard spots and I recall offensive line coach Lee Hays talking about that during the season.
It should also be noted that Texas Tech only loses one player due to graduation, which is Rashad Fortenberry, and if my numbers are correct, Texas Tech returns 13 scholarship linemen, which includes transfers from last year, Joey White and Blake Snider. If you add in the 3 current commits from the 2014 class, with the thought that there might be at least 1 more player added, that gives Texas Tech 16 or 17 players for the offensive line heading into the fall.
Also of note in the article is that C Jared Kaster had shoulder surgery on January 10th, and you would think he would be out for the remainder of the spring, which means that Tony Morales, Alfredo Morales, Brown and Joey White will look to fill that void during the spring.
Links:
Big 12 Recruiting Update: Here's a good re-cap of the current state of the Big 12 and recruiting (via SB Nation). It is a couple of days old, but as many of you have already noted, Jah'Shawn Johnson took a visit to Texas, but was apparently not given an offer. Johnson is supposed to visit Baylor this weekend (I think) and his last visit will be at Texas Tech. Johnson is checking out all of his options, which he should do, let's hope he sticks with the good guys.
College Football Playoff Q&A: This was released a few days ago, but the official site for the college football playoff that's going to start next year released an incredibly self-serving Q&A (via College Football Playoff).
