Texas Tech's fifth year senior offensive lineman Caleb Rogers has been moved around plenty during his time as a Red Raider, and it's been no different, and maybe even more pronounced, in 2024.
Rogers has taken 178 offensive snaps through two games in 2024, seeing playing time at three different positions. Rogers has taken 118 snaps at right guard, 35 at left guard and 25 at right tackle this season.
"I think it's been pretty cool, honestly," Rogers said of his differing alignment thus far.
"I think it's been cool, a good experience to move around, work with different people. Show what I can do on film. I think it's cool. I've gotten to be good at doing a lot of stuff. But, I mean, I want to be great at something, you know, so I'm excited to maybe hone down and on the left side for a little bit."
With the unfortunate news of left guard Vinny Sciury missing the rest of the season due to a knee injury, the versatile Rogers will take over at left guard, head coach Joey McGuire announced on Monday.
Rogers feels confident in the switch, and is ready to continue to be an anchor along the offensive front for the Red Raiders this season.
"I mean, I've played right tackle for a really long time, and so it just makes my right side a lot more comfortable. And I mean, I've played left a lot. I played a lot my freshman year. I played my whole junior year," Rogers said.
"It's just not necessarily, I guess, my most comfortable side. But at guard, it's not as much of a switch, because your feet aren't as staggered. So it's really not that big of a deal going like switching left and right guard."
The Red Raider offensive line was a major question mark coming into the season but have played very well through two games, especially from a pass protection perspective.
The Tech front five has been the 14th best unit in the nation and fourth in the Big 12 Conference, according to PFF's Team Pass Blocking season grades. Tech trails UCF, the No. 1 team in the country by the metric, Oklahoma State and Arizona in the conference.
Rogers has been instrumental for the Red Raiders in that aspect, helping out redshirt sophomore Sheridan Wilson in the pass protection game, and seeing his growth coming against a Washington State team that sent plenty of exotic pressures at Tech.
"Being as old as I am, I feel like I've seen the kitchen sink a thousand different ways. So it was kind of interesting working working it out with the other guys," Rogers said on the challenges over the weekend.
"I think that Sherry's getting a lot better, and his first away game as a starter. I don't think I necessarily did the best job of realizing that...we're in very different times in our career, so I think that's something that we've got to get used to."
The Red Raiders will now be tasked with finding a way to maintain this level of play without Sciury and a now shaken up group from what was expected coming into the season, but Rogers believes his group is up to the task.
"I think that we're better than a lot of guys, and so a lot of guys are going to throw the kitchen sink at us when it comes to movement and blitzes, like there's not very many teams up front who are kind of want to line up, head up and not move and just see if they can beat us," Rogers said.
"Because that's just not gonna work, honestly, with the guys that we have in our room, we're gonna be able to get movement off the ball. We're gonna be able to pick up any type of one on ones in the pass game. So, I mean, do what you got to do, but I think that after the first two weeks, we're more than prepared to do so. We've realized, like, we're going to see this every week. It doesn't really matter how skilled the other team is that we're playing. I think that they think they're going to need it."
