The Gophers are strongly considering pulling a redshirt to help bolster their injury depleted offensive line with Texas native Tyler Moore being the likely choice at left guard.
Starting left guard Jon Christenson had arthroscopic knee surgery last week, and is expected to miss at least two more games. Joe Bjorklund took his place but is playing through his own knee injury.
"Joe's not going to be healthy all year because he had major knee surgery where he's got bone-on-bone," coach Jerry Kill said Sunday. "So he's playing out of the will to play, like Chandler Harnish did his senior year [at Northern Illinois]. And so that's a tough injury. But he'll fight and scrap and crawl and so forth."
Starting left tackle Ben Lauer had knee surgery in August, which continues to limit him. Jonah Pirsig injured a shoulder at Colorado State and played with that injury against Kent State.
"We're trying to redshirt five offensive linemen, but recruiting is going pretty good, so maybe we're going to have to take one off somebody to add the depth that we need," Kill said. "Wish I had a magic wand to see when Jon [Christenson's] going to be back. I don't have that. Ben and Jonah both were slowed. Everybody's got to feel good. That's our job, we've got to get them feeling better."
Moore was a consensus three-star recruit from North Shore High School in Houston. He enrolled at Minnesota in January and impressed the Gophers with his intensity during spring practice. Moore is currently the backup center, so that's something to think about, too. Kill said another option is moving Josh Campion back over to guard, but then they'd have to fill Campion's current spot at right tackle.
For now, it's kind of a hole-in-the-bucket situation. Stay tuned.
