Red Raider Gridiron | Offensive Line Shuffling and Thomsen Comparison

Per LAJ's Don Williams, there will be some movement along the offensive line and some position changes:

• Left Tackle: LaAdrian Waddle will battle December signee Rashad Fortenberry.
• Left Guard: Beau Carpenter is penciled in as the starter with Alfredo Morales as the backup.
• Center: Deveric Gallington will move to center with Tony Morales and then Jared Kaster.
• Right Guard: Terry McDaniel is the starter and then James Polk and Kyle Clark.
• Right Tackle: LeRaven Clark is the starter with Matt Wilson as the backup.

Offensive coordinator Neal Brown said that this is the year that Waddle needs to perform and I'd agree in that he has an opportunity to be a player in the NFL. OC Brown also talked about Clark:

"He got up to 275 (pounds), and we started recruiting him heavy," Brown said. "We got him on a visit and he liked it, and I think he’ll come in and compete. If he can’t beat out Waddle, we’ll flip him over and give him a chance at right tackle."

As you may recall, McDaniel played right tackle for a good part of last year and I'm guessing that Brown and Thomsen want a more athletic right tackle. I thought McDaniel was fine at right tackle, but he is most likely more limited athletically than Clark and Fortenberry, although I honestly haven't seen Clark of Fortenberry in live-action.

OC Brown also talked about Clark:

"We’re excited about him," Brown said. "He performed at a high level during preseason camp. In our Sunday night redshirt games, he played at a high level, and I think he’s ready to play. He’s a redshirt freshman, but he’s got the ability, and he’s got the size. We’re going to give him first crack at right tackle."

Not much has already been written about new offensive line coach Chris Thomsen and because I'm a Texas Tech addict, I went to the internets and came up with a couple of interesting things that I thought you might enjoy.

I had previously heard offensive coordinator Neal Brown talk a bit about the fact that Abilene Christian (ACU) had success rushing and passing the ball and that OC Brown wanted the type of success that ACU had over the past few years. I think OC Brown mentioned that ACU averaged 300 yards passing and 200 yards rushing. I was curious about the numbers themselves, so I decided to take a look. ACU was pretty darned good and decided to just take a look at the past two years, 2011 and 2010 and take a look at ACU's basic rushing numbers.

So much more after the jump, including the most informative table in the history of ever.

Here's a table:

ACU didn't rush for 200 yards a game, but ACU was better than Texas Tech in terms of rushing the ball. The biggest numbers that stand out to me are the fact that ACU's passing yards per attempt is significantly higher than Texas Tech's and the yards per rushing attempt was significantly better. If you wanted encouragement, that's a good place to start.

Thomsen had a coach's show, which you can find all of the 2011 Chris Thomsen Show, and I decided to take Week 12 for whatever reason and watch the entirety of it. First things, I enjoyed the highlights, there were some multiple looks from the offense, although I didn't see any video that just focused on the offensive line. Because Thomsen is largely responsible for the offense, I think it would be fair to think that the overall success of the offense should be attributed to Thomsen or his ability to organize and teach his staff to do the same.