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Texas Tech football's Behren Morton to miss rest of spring practice rehabbing injury
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- Texas Tech football's Behren Morton to miss rest of spring practice rehabbing injury
Quarterback Behren Morton will sit out the rest of the Texas Tech football team's spring practices , continuing rehabilitation on the right shoulder injury he played through for much of the 2023 season.
Tech announced Morton's ceasing participation in spring practice on Wednesday, just before the Red Raiders' eighth of their allotted 15 sessions. The announcement said Morton was a full participant in the first six practices, most recently on Friday, and then wasn't involved Monday in the seventh session of spring ball.
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"First and foremost, if we were to play a game today, Behren Morton would be our starting quarterback," Tech coach Joey McGuire said. "This decision was made in the best interest of Behren's health going into next season. Behren will resume full football activities later this summer."
Morton suffered a grade-3 AC joint sprain in his throwing shoulder during the Red Raiders' Big 12 opener Sept. 23 at West Virginia . He kept playing and finished the season with 1,757 yards and 15 touchdowns passing and eight interceptions.
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Morton was named most outstanding offensive player of the Independence Bowl, throwing for 259 yards and three touchdowns in a 34-14 victory over California .
Morton has said more than once, including recently, that he's not had surgery on the shoulder.
Tech started spring practice on March 19, and Morton didn't hide the fact the injury was not yet fully healed. He said his off-season weight training consisted of single-arm and lower-body lifts and said he was "spending hours and hours still in the training room, trying to get this thing (shoulder) healthy."
"This offense is going to be very explosive," he said. "Once a healthy shoulder comes back, we can open up the playbook and dive into some of the plays that we didn't get to see last year."
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McGuire and Tech offensive coordinator Zach Kittley will focus their quarterback development the rest of spring on solidifying the No. 2 spot. That competition continues among redshirt freshman Jake Strong and two newcomers: Cameran Brown, a sophomore who transferred from Division II West Georgia , and Will Hammond, a true freshman from Hutto who is the No. 36 recruit in the state and No. 225 nationally on the 247Sports composite index.
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Texas Tech quarterback Behren Morton, shown during pre-game warmup at the Independence Bowl, will sit out the rest of spring practice to continue rehabilitating the right shoulder injury he suffered last September. Tech announced Morton's ceasing participation on Wednesday, just before the Red Raiders' eighth of their 15 spring workouts.
"As I've said for the past several months, we have got to develop depth this spring, including at the quarterback position," McGuire said. "With this decision being made today, it allows us to divide our reps over the back half of spring ball to find out who our No. 2 quarterback will be.
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"Behren is unquestionably the leader of our offense and has proven that with his performance this spring. At the same time, this is a great opportunity for the rest of our quarterback room to go out and compete to see who will be that next guy up when needed."
Brown, 6-foot-2 and 230 pounds, was offensive freshman of the year in the Gulf South Conference, passing for 914 yards and 10 touchdowns and rushing for 478 yards and six TDs.
Strong played the second half of the Tech-Kansas State game on Oct. 14 and started the next week at Brigham Young, both in losses. He passed for 409 yards and two TDs with six interceptions.
Texas Tech quarterback Behren Morton (2) threw for 1,757 yards and 15 touchdowns last year, playing most of the season with an injury throwing shoulder.
Friday was the team's first spring scrimmage. Morton passed for 140 yards and two touchdowns with the first team, Tech said, improving his completion rate to 70% for all 11-on-11 team periods this spring.
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The Red Raiders' spring game is scheduled for 1 p.m. April 20 in Midland. It will be shown on ESPN+.
This article originally appeared on Lubbock Avalanche-Journal: Texas Tech football's Behren Morton to miss rest of spring practice
