Texas Tech football: Breaking down the battle for both OT spots
The Texas Tech football team has to find two new starting offensive tackles in 2020 so let’s break down the candidates and how they stack up.
There’s a reason that offensive tackles get paid more than any other offensive linemen in the NFL. That’s because they are the most critical members of the line when it comes to protecting the QB. And in 2020, the Texas Tech football program has to find two new starters at the tackle positions.
In fact, head coach Matt Wells and offensive line coach Steve Farmer will have to replace two multi-year starters. That’s a unique challenge.
The first player Tech must find a replacement for is Travis Bruffy. Over the last four years, the Missouri City, Texas native played both right and left tackle making 34 starts. Last year, he was the starter at left tackle for all 12 games earning second-team All-Big 12 honors.
Bruffy was also a team leader. A two-year captain, he was one of just 15 players from a Power 5 conference to participate in the autonomy session of the NCAA Convention in Orlando, a group that voted on potential NCAA legislation that is intended to improve the experience for student-athletes.
The other tackle the Red Raiders had to say goodbye to after the 2019 season was Terrence Steele. The Cibolo, Texas product started 10 games last year at right tackle a season ago to bring his career total to 47. He earned honorable-mention all-conference recognition in each of the past two years and was invited to the NFL scouting combine before signing a free-agent deal with the Dallas Cowboys.
Thus, the Red Raiders have to fill the shoes of a pair of tackles that had a combined 81 starts in their careers. When you add that total to guard Madison Akamnonu’s 39 career starts, that means this year’s o-line will be replacing players that had 120 career starts.
Fortunately, the interior of the line looks rather solid. Tech brings back junior center Travis Bruffy, who was the team’s most consistent lineman last year and who did not allow a sack all year as well as former All-Big 12 right guard Jack Anderson and left guard Weston Wright, who started eight games and played well at right tackle after Anderson went down for the season.
Thus, Tech has three out of five members of the o-line in place prior to the start of fall camp. But needing to find both starting tackles is a huge task, especially given that there were only four spring practices for the candidates to compete for the job.
This will be perhaps the key battle to watch during fall training camp as most of the other position groups seem to be settled from a personnel perspective. So let’s take a look at the candidates to fill these spots and break down which ones might enter camp with a leg up in the competition.