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The two position preview articles that were published by the LAJ were the wide receivers (via LAJ) and the interior line (via LAJ). Let's focus on the line first, where we really don't get much in terms of a depth chart, but there's not a lot of meat there. Jared Kaster is out with an injury during the spring, nothing serious, and Beau Carpenter leaving, means that Tony Morales, Alfredo Morales, Baylen Brown, Joey White, James Polk, Josh Outlaw, and Cody Hayes, are in the mix at the guard and center spots. There was a note that said that Blake Snider is done with football, just going to be a student this point forward.
As far as the receivers, receivers coach Eric Morris was a bit more clear about the players that are attempting to make an impact at the outside receiver spot. I was surprised that it is pretty much a done deal Reginald Davis is clearly the starter at one spot, while there is something to be determined with the other outside spot:
"We’ve got a ton of young bodies lining up to try and take over that role, which will be fun," Red Raiders coach Kliff Kingsbury said. "You’ve got D.J. Polite-Bray, Derreck Edwards, Shawn Corker, all guys trying to push and be that starter over there.
"Then after that, we’ll sort through the backups to see who’ll be Reggie’s backup (at flanker) and who’ll be the backup at X (split end). But it’s going to be a fun competition."
That means they somewhat have Davis penciled in at the Z spot, which was Bradley Marquez's spot and the coaches could use Marquez in a variety of spots and Marquez will play where he's needed, whether it is outside or inside. Also in the mix is Dylan Cantrell and Devin Lauderdale, which means that this might be a very interesting position battle moving through the spring.
Links:
Kingsbury's Defensive Substitution Rule: On Friday afternoon, head coach Kliff Kingsbury was on ESPN's Outside the Lines. I tried to find an original article but it was part of a longer podcast and that is something I didn't get a chance to review this weekend. In any event, we have a bit from Kingsbury, which is being passed around a handful of places, as the headline quotes as Kingsbury discusses the proposed defensive substitution rule (via College Football Talk):
"The last three losses he’s had had have been against up-tempo teams. I’ll leave it at that," Kingsbury said on the Outside The Lines podcast.
"I was surprised that it got that far to be honest," he continued. "And to put it under the guise of player safety when like everybody said there is no empirical data to back anything even close to that."
"There is nothing to back that up, to say that if you play at a fast tempo and you’re not allowed a substitute that causes more injuries. Nobody’s ever done a study on that or there’s no scientific data." "I don’t know how you can found a rule on just hearsay, basically."
Bielema Issues Non-Apology: A proponent of the rule, Arkansas head coach Bret Bielema, spoke to Andy Staples on Friday (via SI) and again used the death of Cal player Ted Agu. After I got home from work the Cal AD took to Twitter to take Bielema to task for using the death of a player, in a totally unrelated setting, as a prop to force his rule through (via California Golden Blogs). The worst thing about all of this is that he doesn't once say he is sorry in his series of Tweets to issue a statement (issuing statements via Twitter!). If you go to the CGB link, there's a paragraph there about how Agu's family said that the rumor that he had a sickle cell trait is false, so Beliema is uninformed and inappropriate. Meanwhile, the Arkansas bloggers have a really terrific take on the situation (via Arkansas Fight) which is the rule, without including the death of a person, could make a worthy discussion point, but Bielema sorta ruined that.
