RUSTON — The immediate aftermath of O'Shea Dugas' injury over the weekend brought about questions of how Louisiana Tech would handle his potential absence at the start of 2016.


Coincidentally, an almost identical situation happened in 2015 that resulted in Dugas' placement in the starting lineup and an eventual Freshman All-America campaign. Outlaw, who shared reps with redshirt freshman Ethan Reed on Monday, may never start at left guard if Dugas can make it back, but it's not a bad fallback option to have.

"O'Shea was a tackle going into the fall and 10 days prior to the season starting, we felt for him to have an opportunity to help us was to move him into guard and eventually develop," Tech offensive lineman Robert McFarland said Monday. "Little did we know we'd have some injuries the first half of the first game and he becomes a 12-game starter after that."


Wixson hurt his shoulder in the opener against Southern and missed the rest of the season, prompting Tech to shift Mahaffey, the team's fourth-string center with Joseph Brunson and Cam Manning sidelined, to center, which in turn opened up a slot for Dugas to make his first-career start at Western Kentucky.

This year, with right tackle Gewhite Stallworth playing well enough at the position, Tech felt it could move Outlaw inside since McFarland believes a team has to "get your best players on the field."


"He didn't even flinch," McFarland said. "You sign junior college players to come in and start. You don't sign them to be backups. He came in here with the idea that if it wasn't at tackle he'd compete at guard. It was nothing he hadn't done at tackle it was just for the betterment of our team overall. Not to say he'd never be a tackle again if he's able to do both."


"The biggest thing we do when we teach players here is we try to teach everything by concept to make them understand and see the big picture on things," McFarland said. "He's still blocking big on big. If he had to block on gap he's still on gap.

"A lot of the things carry over. Obviously there's going to be some learning and some calls that happen inside with the center. He's been here a few weeks and obviously that along with the screen game is some of the things he'll have to learn and get better at."

Outlaw's move had a trickle down effect to the rest of rest of the offensive line.



"You have to have players who can swing and play both sides. They're not limited to one side," McFarland said. "Shane is obviously competing for a tackle job."