@A. Dickens and @C. Level both spoke with Texas Tech running back coach and co-offensive coordinator Clay McGuire on Double T 97.3 to discuss Demarcus Felton, the new NCAA redshirt rule and more. Here's the transcribed interview.
LINK for audio.
Clay, the program released the post-spring depth chart this afternoon, Da’Leon Ward listed, right now, as your starter ahead of Tre King, what gives Ward the edge over King right now?
“I appreciate you guys having me on but it’s one of those things that he was a little bit more consistent in spring ball than Tre was and at the end of the day Tre had a little clean up deal coming out of fall last year and wasn’t 100 percent full go through the whole spring so Da’Leon had the bulk of the reps and really got to perform a lot more than Tre did so it’ll be a good battle going into fall camp. We know both of those kids can run and both play the position at a high level and at the end of the day competition brings out the best in all of us. We’re going to be better for it one way or the other whoever is the starter.”
What did you make of the new red shirt rule that was passed about a week and a half ago that allows these true freshmen to play up to four games but still redshirt and so essentially gives them four and a half years to play but it doesn’t cost them that one year, kind of take me through that with you guys through a coaching standpoint what the thought process is one that?
“Well I think it’s a great rule, it’s one of those deals you have a lot of times 10, 15, 20 guys on your roster that could really help you win a game going in when you’re building a program, you want to redshirt every kid so that, you know, a 23-year-old man is a lot better than an 18-year-old kid. They’re just in better shape, they’re bigger, stronger, faster, more mature, and their better years are later. I think into the prime of their career but what it does is sometimes you can’t redshirt a kid, there’s tough decisions to be made based on what’s best for the kid, what’s best for the program at the current moment but with this new rule it allows you like I said you have about 15 to 20 kids that can really help you win a game in some form or fashion whether that’s special teams or coming in and playing a game or two, another guy’s injured or banged up and so it just allows you to use your entire roster as opposed to using 75-80 percent of it.”
And you mentioned 23-year-old that’s been in the weight room and all of that stuff is better than an 18-year-old, is that why this was really welcome news that whatever time it happened but Demarcus Felton, I don’t know if he ever left but he was ‘I’m going to transfer, I’m going to go play my last year somewhere else’, but now we find out he’s back and we’re like that gives you a little more depth and another piece that’s been a part of this program for several years.
“Yeah, exactly, like I said it was good going away present as we kind of left for summer vacation as we got through spring/summer camps and all of the stuff like that is Felton decided to come back and wanted to finish out his senior year here and compete for the job and like I said it’s one of those deals, you mentioned Tre King and Da’Leon Ward which both of those guys have proven they can play at a high level but they haven’t proved to do it through a whole season so you throw Demarcus in the mix, along with the two freshmen we signed we’ve really got a bunch of guys with a lot of ability in that room to really do some good stuff and hopefully you get one guy that’s kind of the gamechanger, gamebreaker guy but ultimately at the end of the day if you have a committee back there that can get the job done effectively, that’s just as good as well.”
With Felton back, to go along with Ward and King is there perhaps less of a need to play both of your true freshmen or is that still the plan moving forward?
“It just depends, again it goes back like I said that new rule gives you some options for what you can do. If one of these kids is really a dynamic player, you’ll find a way for him to make it into the kicking game at some point or a role player versus a certain team that might see something at a certain place but at the end of the day, you’d like to redshirt them but ultimately we’re here to win games and whoever the best player is they’re the ones going to play. We had Baron Batch coming back in become a starter but we had Josh Crawford that started in 2006 or something like that, 2007, I think Aaron Crawford, I meant Aaron Crawford and started the entire season and had a great season for us and so had an old stable of running backs coming back in ’09 and Erik Stevens came off and was a backup running back and ended up propelling himself into a great career at Texas Tech and at the end of the day you’re going to play the best guys that are going to help win games and that might be Ta’Zhawn Henry and Sarodorick Thompson.”
How much different are summers in the days that these kids endure in the summertime, how much different is it now compared to what it was when you were playing?
“More hands-on, coaches have more opportunities to work with them. We still can’t go out and have practice or anything like that but you can work the schedule where you have an hour to an hour and a half something like that in the week with them over the summer. So, it’s just one of those deals you have more access to the kids as opposed back when I was playing, I mean, when summer came around you didn’t see the coaches because you couldn’t, it was against the rules to do anything with them. You couldn’t eat with them, you had no access to the coaches so you have more access and accessibility to the kids and vice versa with the kids to the coaches so you’re just around more and there’s a little bit more structure. I mean the strength staff are growing and people don’t remember when I was playing which ain’t too long ago is you only had one strength coach and an assistant and now you have especially at the power five level, you’re fortunate enough to have five full-time strength coaches on staff. So, there’s so many more resources for these kids these days to get better and do a little more which is great for the student-athletes I mean people will talk all the time these kids aren’t getting paid this, that, or the other but with considering the amount of money they already get in their scholarships, and the amount of money it costs to go to college these days in general, but the resources that are at their disposal and it’s pretty amazing what these kids get. They obviously work really hard for it and they’re demanded a lot but they also get quite a bit in return as well.”
Clay, Tyler Carr, came into Tech as a d-lineman, played some fullback last year and now is on that post-spring depth chart is listed first at the b-back spot, what’s has allowed him to make that transition so easily?
“He made that transition last year before I got here but he’s just one of those hard-nosed, tough, grit, West Texas kid that wants to do anything he can to help Texas Tech win a football game. He could care less if his name is ever in the paper but he’s one of the best kids in our program and he’s bought into this program as anybody on the football team and he’s going to have to battle there’s some guys in that position like Mason Reed, there’s some guys behind him and you throw in Donta Thompson who has the ability to do some of those things and maybe be a little bit more versatile on our offense so there’s going to be a lot of competition at that position because they might be able to do a lot of stuff out of that but like I said it just goes back to that kind of kid he is, he’s a heck of a young man and really tough and wants to be there and wants to do everything that he can to help us win a football game.”
Do you see a little bit of yourself in guys like Mason or Tyler?
“Yeah, those guys are a little bit more athletic than I was. Tyler’s quite a bit bigger than I was, and Mason’s more athletic than me and I think one thing that helped me back in those days was kind of process of elimination. I didn’t have anybody behind me so I didn’t have any backups, hardly anyone to beat you out.”
I think the want to part and the versatility part because these guys, they may not be top of mind awareness for a lot of people but I think we’ll see a lot of, and you mentioned Donta like based on Kevin Johns and you being here kind of morphing what you want to do offensively. These three guys are going to play a huge role.
“Yeah and I agree, like I said they’re more of an emphasis right now in the run game for a long time especially in the conference and we really came out and done some good stuff as far as what we’re doing offensively and that position is going to play a huge role and like I said it’s one of those deals the more effective those guys can be the bigger the package of what we can do in the run game which allows us to be better in the pass game which obviously we’ve been really good at for years and you mentioned Donta Thompson, he gives us the ability to be any kind of person we want to be whether that’s 10, 11 12, 20 and could really give a defensive coordinator nightmares as far as what the call based on personal which I said we’ll as he develops into a football he really could be a kid that can be dynamic on the offense.”
LINK for audio.
Clay, the program released the post-spring depth chart this afternoon, Da’Leon Ward listed, right now, as your starter ahead of Tre King, what gives Ward the edge over King right now?
“I appreciate you guys having me on but it’s one of those things that he was a little bit more consistent in spring ball than Tre was and at the end of the day Tre had a little clean up deal coming out of fall last year and wasn’t 100 percent full go through the whole spring so Da’Leon had the bulk of the reps and really got to perform a lot more than Tre did so it’ll be a good battle going into fall camp. We know both of those kids can run and both play the position at a high level and at the end of the day competition brings out the best in all of us. We’re going to be better for it one way or the other whoever is the starter.”
What did you make of the new red shirt rule that was passed about a week and a half ago that allows these true freshmen to play up to four games but still redshirt and so essentially gives them four and a half years to play but it doesn’t cost them that one year, kind of take me through that with you guys through a coaching standpoint what the thought process is one that?
“Well I think it’s a great rule, it’s one of those deals you have a lot of times 10, 15, 20 guys on your roster that could really help you win a game going in when you’re building a program, you want to redshirt every kid so that, you know, a 23-year-old man is a lot better than an 18-year-old kid. They’re just in better shape, they’re bigger, stronger, faster, more mature, and their better years are later. I think into the prime of their career but what it does is sometimes you can’t redshirt a kid, there’s tough decisions to be made based on what’s best for the kid, what’s best for the program at the current moment but with this new rule it allows you like I said you have about 15 to 20 kids that can really help you win a game in some form or fashion whether that’s special teams or coming in and playing a game or two, another guy’s injured or banged up and so it just allows you to use your entire roster as opposed to using 75-80 percent of it.”
And you mentioned 23-year-old that’s been in the weight room and all of that stuff is better than an 18-year-old, is that why this was really welcome news that whatever time it happened but Demarcus Felton, I don’t know if he ever left but he was ‘I’m going to transfer, I’m going to go play my last year somewhere else’, but now we find out he’s back and we’re like that gives you a little more depth and another piece that’s been a part of this program for several years.
“Yeah, exactly, like I said it was good going away present as we kind of left for summer vacation as we got through spring/summer camps and all of the stuff like that is Felton decided to come back and wanted to finish out his senior year here and compete for the job and like I said it’s one of those deals, you mentioned Tre King and Da’Leon Ward which both of those guys have proven they can play at a high level but they haven’t proved to do it through a whole season so you throw Demarcus in the mix, along with the two freshmen we signed we’ve really got a bunch of guys with a lot of ability in that room to really do some good stuff and hopefully you get one guy that’s kind of the gamechanger, gamebreaker guy but ultimately at the end of the day if you have a committee back there that can get the job done effectively, that’s just as good as well.”
With Felton back, to go along with Ward and King is there perhaps less of a need to play both of your true freshmen or is that still the plan moving forward?
“It just depends, again it goes back like I said that new rule gives you some options for what you can do. If one of these kids is really a dynamic player, you’ll find a way for him to make it into the kicking game at some point or a role player versus a certain team that might see something at a certain place but at the end of the day, you’d like to redshirt them but ultimately we’re here to win games and whoever the best player is they’re the ones going to play. We had Baron Batch coming back in become a starter but we had Josh Crawford that started in 2006 or something like that, 2007, I think Aaron Crawford, I meant Aaron Crawford and started the entire season and had a great season for us and so had an old stable of running backs coming back in ’09 and Erik Stevens came off and was a backup running back and ended up propelling himself into a great career at Texas Tech and at the end of the day you’re going to play the best guys that are going to help win games and that might be Ta’Zhawn Henry and Sarodorick Thompson.”
How much different are summers in the days that these kids endure in the summertime, how much different is it now compared to what it was when you were playing?
“More hands-on, coaches have more opportunities to work with them. We still can’t go out and have practice or anything like that but you can work the schedule where you have an hour to an hour and a half something like that in the week with them over the summer. So, it’s just one of those deals you have more access to the kids as opposed back when I was playing, I mean, when summer came around you didn’t see the coaches because you couldn’t, it was against the rules to do anything with them. You couldn’t eat with them, you had no access to the coaches so you have more access and accessibility to the kids and vice versa with the kids to the coaches so you’re just around more and there’s a little bit more structure. I mean the strength staff are growing and people don’t remember when I was playing which ain’t too long ago is you only had one strength coach and an assistant and now you have especially at the power five level, you’re fortunate enough to have five full-time strength coaches on staff. So, there’s so many more resources for these kids these days to get better and do a little more which is great for the student-athletes I mean people will talk all the time these kids aren’t getting paid this, that, or the other but with considering the amount of money they already get in their scholarships, and the amount of money it costs to go to college these days in general, but the resources that are at their disposal and it’s pretty amazing what these kids get. They obviously work really hard for it and they’re demanded a lot but they also get quite a bit in return as well.”
Clay, Tyler Carr, came into Tech as a d-lineman, played some fullback last year and now is on that post-spring depth chart is listed first at the b-back spot, what’s has allowed him to make that transition so easily?
“He made that transition last year before I got here but he’s just one of those hard-nosed, tough, grit, West Texas kid that wants to do anything he can to help Texas Tech win a football game. He could care less if his name is ever in the paper but he’s one of the best kids in our program and he’s bought into this program as anybody on the football team and he’s going to have to battle there’s some guys in that position like Mason Reed, there’s some guys behind him and you throw in Donta Thompson who has the ability to do some of those things and maybe be a little bit more versatile on our offense so there’s going to be a lot of competition at that position because they might be able to do a lot of stuff out of that but like I said it just goes back to that kind of kid he is, he’s a heck of a young man and really tough and wants to be there and wants to do everything that he can to help us win a football game.”
Do you see a little bit of yourself in guys like Mason or Tyler?
“Yeah, those guys are a little bit more athletic than I was. Tyler’s quite a bit bigger than I was, and Mason’s more athletic than me and I think one thing that helped me back in those days was kind of process of elimination. I didn’t have anybody behind me so I didn’t have any backups, hardly anyone to beat you out.”
I think the want to part and the versatility part because these guys, they may not be top of mind awareness for a lot of people but I think we’ll see a lot of, and you mentioned Donta like based on Kevin Johns and you being here kind of morphing what you want to do offensively. These three guys are going to play a huge role.
“Yeah and I agree, like I said they’re more of an emphasis right now in the run game for a long time especially in the conference and we really came out and done some good stuff as far as what we’re doing offensively and that position is going to play a huge role and like I said it’s one of those deals the more effective those guys can be the bigger the package of what we can do in the run game which allows us to be better in the pass game which obviously we’ve been really good at for years and you mentioned Donta Thompson, he gives us the ability to be any kind of person we want to be whether that’s 10, 11 12, 20 and could really give a defensive coordinator nightmares as far as what the call based on personal which I said we’ll as he develops into a football he really could be a kid that can be dynamic on the offense.”
