Player Availability. Lots of players, Branden Jackson, Jakeem Grant and Micah Awe all talk. They asked Jackson who is taking the snaps at running back trying to simulate Leonard Fournette and they said that Poet Thomas and D.J. Polite-Bray where getting their chances along with the freshmen running backs.

/hot fire emojis/ LAJ’s Don Williams writes about the Baker Mayfield situation and the title to Williams’ article is “Mayfield needs to quit playing politics and just play”.

Texas Tech didn’t take away a year of Mayfield’s eligibility. Mayfield knowingly threw away a year of eligibility by the path he chose. The transfer rules have been in place for years, a sensible deterrent to every disgruntled player having carte blanche to skip from one program to the next each offseason.

Think of the chaos that could cause.

Nor was Texas Tech the only entity who didn’t see it Mayfield’s way.

The Big 12 faculty reps, whose board comprises members from every school, voted against him.

But Mayfield’s sympathy votes have always depended on key components to his story being taken at face value. That’s just one. Here are a couple of others: that he was just any ol’ walk-on and that he wouldn’t have received a scholarship from Tech in a timely fashion.

More on Player Transfers and Devin Lauderdale Suspension. LAJ’s Don Williams has a quote from fellow receiver Ian Sadler talking about the Devin Lauderdale suspension:

“He obviously would love to be here,” inside receiver Ian Sadler said earlier Thursday. “I would love for him to be here as well. It’s going to be a tough loss, but young guys are going to have to step up and that’s going to be that.

“He’ll hopefully be back soon, but that’s all I know.”

Thanks to Brian for getting a post up last night and here are my thoughts:

• With Mike Mitchell transferring again, it doesn’t surprise me. He wasn’t playing and we’re about to find out real quick if David Gibbs was correct in assessing how and where Mitchell plays. Well, at least for a year. Would it surprise me to see Mitchell go play at a JUCO and rack up a ton of tackles? Absolutely not. I think he has the athletic talent, but if I had to guess, Gibbs will not play you if you don’t do things technically correct. I think this holds true with Derrick Dixon and Jalen Barnes as well. You have to do things Gibbs way, without question, and you’ll get to play. I’m not trying to paint Mitchell as some sort of rebel, but I’m guessing there was a disconnect between what Gibbs was wanting Mitchell to do and Mitchell actually doing it.
• With Derrick Dixon and Jalen Barnes, they were passed up by Jah’Shawn Johnson and couldn’t pass J.J. Gaines or Keenon Ward to get playing time. Dixon express on Twitter earlier in the season about not being able to get on the field. When those tweets surfaced, the general consensus was “if you want to play, then get better”. Of course I wonder why we don’t say those same things about Mitchell.
• Jalen Barnes was somewhat anointed early by Wallerstedt as a guy that would play early and then I think he was injured and didn’t play. He did play in 2014 and played quite a bit, but couldn’t beat out Johnson.
• One last thought with Mitchell is that I think the reason why Texas Tech got Mitchell to transfer in teh first place was Wallerstedt. I think Wallerstedt was instrumental in recruiting Mitchell when Wallerstedt was at TAMU.
• We somewhat knew that this might be coming down the track with Level hinting at something last week. When Lauderdale is dialed in, he’s great, but when he’s not dialed in, then it’s not worth the time. I wonder if Lauderdale is the same way personally, or with academics? If he’s not fully engaged, then he’s not all-in. Lauderdale can get back on the team this spring. This sounds like a last chance.

Lake Ridge vs. Richmond George Ranch. This game is important because Texas Tech commit QB Jett Duffey is playing the last game of his senior year after leading Lake Ridge to a 15-0 record. The game is at 8:00 pm and will be televised on FOX Sports Southwest Plus. Duffey tweaked a hamstring last week and wasn’t 100% by the end of game in defeating Aledo. Richmond George Ranch is also 15-0 and is led by Darius Anderson, a terrific running back. You can check out a preview from the DMN. There’s also a good article from the DMN about Duffey being a dual-threat quarterback and how that’s changed the game for a lot of high schools. Here’s Duffey’s head coach on why that’s so important to have a quarterback that can also run:

“If a quarterback can drop back and throw only, there are some things you can’t do on offense because you’ve got a player who can’t run. When you’ve got a quarterback who can run in a one-back offense, they’re no longer defending a one-back offense. Now you’re looking at a spread formation with two backs,” said Thor, whose Lake Ridge team has used that advantage to average 61.4 points per game in the playoffs.

Miscellaneous. Our friends, Carlos Silva, Jr. and Michael LaBarre at Wreck’Em 24/7 have their weekly recruiting show . . . Phil Steele has his All-Big 12 1st, 2nd and 3rd teams and Texas Tech has five players on offense and three players on defense make those teams, led by De’Andre Washington and Le’Raven Clark . . . ESPN’s Max Olson has games where players had the best performances and it’s a ton of offensive players having career days against Texas Tech . . . the ESPN SEC blog bros talk about the bowl game they are most looking forward to watching . . . LAJ’s Don Williams writes about special teams ace John White, who had his Bremond Tigers playing for a state title yesterday . . .