DE Brandon Sharpe Latest Red Raider Nixed for Saturday
Texas Tech’s Brandon Sharpe did not travel with the team to Austin on Friday, yet another unwelcome development at the Red Raiders’ depleted defensive end position.
Tech spokesman Blayne Beal characterized it as “an internal issue.’”
The news on its own might not be crushing, but Sharpe makes the third Red Raider defensive end to be nixed for Saturday’s contest. This on a team that entered 2009 to replace two of the keys to last year’s victory over the Longhorns in Lubbock, defensive ends McKinner Dixon and Brandon Williams. As Double T Nation wrote Friday morning, before the news of Sharpe broke:
As noted last night, DE Rajon Henley, DE Ryan Haliburton and SS Franklin Mitchem are not traveling with the team. This is awful news, and in LAJ’s Don Williams football notebook he suggests that Jonathan Brydon (6-2/220), a junior defensive end, is an option, and that DT Pearlie Graves is also on the travel roster. The complete lack of depth at defensive end is worrisome and losing a starting safety in Mitchem could be disastrous. I have no idea how this all works out but here’s a couple of thoughts.
Tough breaks for Texas Tech and welcome news for Colt McCoy, who may have all the time in the world to pick on the Red Raider secondary.
