Football's back for Red Raiders

The Texas Tech football team, coming off an 8-5 season and a Texas Bowl victory against Mississippi, begins its 15 sessions of spring practice with a workout at 4 p.m. Tuesday.

Tech returns seven offensive players who started more than half of last year's games and an additional eight players who started between three and six games. On defense, the Red Raiders have back seven players who made 10 or more starts.

The high level of experience on the roster stems largely from 14 of last season's Tech seniors choosing to stay in school and play in 2023 on the bonus year the NCAA awarded players who were on rosters during the Covid-disrupted 2020 season.

Among those who decided to use the extra year are defensive starters Tony Bradford and Jaylon Hutchings in the line and Malik Dunlap, Rayshad Williams and Dadrion Taylor-Demerson in the secondary.

Among the offensive players who opted in for the extra year are quarterback Tyler Shough, receiver Xavier White, tight end Henry Teeter and lineman Dennis Wilburn. So did punter Austin McNamara.

The Red Raiders will practice on Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday each of the next five weeks with one exception: a Friday workout on April 7 instead of a workout on April 6.

The spring game is scheduled for noon April 22 at PlainsCapital Park/Lowrey Field. The site of the spring game was moved because of the ongoing south end zone construction project at Jones AT&T Stadium.

Tech plans to switch the positions of three returning offensive line starters, coach Joey McGuire said in December. Monroe Mills will go to left tackle and Caleb Rogers to right tackle, trading spots from last season, and Wilburn will go from center to right guard. Cole Spencer and Rusty Staats, transfers from Western Kentucky, are pegged for left guard and center, respectively, McGuire said.

College baseball

Texas Tech second baseman Austin Green on Monday was named the Big 12 player of the week and co-newcomer of the week for his performance in last week's games.

In two games against Texas-Arlington and three games against Oklahoma State, Green went 10 for 19 with three home runs, 10 runs batted in and six runs scored. Green had four multi-hit games out of the five.

Green is from Class 3A New Diana in the East Texas town of Diana. He transferred to Tech this season from Weatherford College.

He shared the newcomer of the week honor with Oklahoma shortstop Dakota Harris, a transfer from Polk State who went 5 for 10 with five runs batted in the Sooners' series victory over TCU.

Tech moved up four spots to No. 14 in the weekly poll of the National Collegiate Baseball Writers Association. The Red Raiders won twice in a three-game series Friday, Saturday and Sunday against Oklahoma State, which dropped from No. 13 to No. 16.

The Red Raiders (18-4, 2-1) play Texas (14-7, 0-0) in games at 7 p.m. Friday, 2:30 p.m. Saturday and 2:30 p.m. Sunday in Austin.

This article originally appeared on Lubbock Avalanche-Journal: Texas Tech roundup: Football's back for Red Raiders