Texas Tech football: RB Armand Shyne out for season with broken ribs

The Texas Tech football team will be without senior RB Armand Shyne for the remainder of the year after the grad transfer sustained broken ribs in the loss to Kansas.

During the Texas Tech football team’s three-game losing streak, we’ve discussed this team’s lack of depth quite a bit. However, one position that hasn’t been a concern in that regard is running back.

But now, we can add the RB corps to the list of areas in which the Red Raiders are one injury away from a significant problem. That’s because head coach Matt Wells announced on Monday that senior RB Armand Shyne will miss the rest of the season with broken ribs sustained in the team’s most recent game at Kansas.

Wells did say that the grad transfer, who joined the Red Raiders from Utah in the offseason, might be able to return if the Red Raiders qualify for a bowl game. But at 3-5 overall, Shyne needs his team to go 3-1 in its last four games to give him a shot at hitting the field one final time in his college career.

If the California native dos not return, he will end his career with 1,259 rushing yards and 12 touchdowns in a career shortened to just three seasons because of injury. In 2016, Shyne saw his freshman season ended after just five games because of a leg injury. At the time, he was leading the Utes with 373 yards on 78 carries to go along with four touchdowns.

Unfortunately, he then sustained an arm injury in fall camp prior to the 2017 season. That injury kept him out all year and opened the door for Zach Moss to become one of the nation’s top running backs. Shyne returned in 2018 as Moss’ backup but got only 8.5 carries per game.

With Moss set for a potential All-American season this fall, Shyne came to Tech looking for more playing time. Though he showed flashes at times, he was eventually passed up by redshirt freshman SaRodorick Thompson, who has emerged as Tech’s leading ball-carrier this year.

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Still, Shyne has been an important piece of the puzzle, especially as Thompson has been somewhat limited by a tender ankle in recent weeks. His 374 yards on 65 carries gives him more rushing yards than any Red Raider running back accrued all of last season as he’s proven to be a great option to spell Thompson.

Now, that job falls to sophomore Ta’Zhawn Henry, who has not been as impactful this year as he was last fall. Though his yards-per-carry average has risen from 4.0 last year to 5.3 in 2019, Henry has found the endzone only once after scoring eight times in his true freshman season.

Henry has 265 yards on 50 carries and now, he can expect his workload to increase. He’s had only one game with double-digit carries, the season-opening win against Montana State in which he had 12 rushes for 55 yards.

While Thompson and Henry are more than capable of manning the RB spot for the last four games, should one suffer a significant injury, there are no scholarship options ready to step in. Behind Henry on the depth chart is walk-on junior Jax Welch from Odessa, who has just four carries for 29 yards and 5-foot-6 true freshman walk-on Chux Nwubako II who has run the ball one time for one yard as a Red Raider.

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With the ground game taking on even more importance for Texas Tech given the absence of starting QB Alan Bowman, Thompson and Henry must remain injury-free for the remainder of the year. With the loss of Armand Shyne, we are just one play away from the RB position being one of the most dangerously thin on the roster.

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