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Texas Tech Saturday Morning Notes - Texas Gameday Edition

By Seth C

Double T Nation News:

It's game day, on two fronts. The men's basketball team opens today against UC Riverside and the football team plays an incredibly important game in Austin. The Lady Raiders basketball team also opened up their season with a victory. Congrats to the Lady Raiders.

A couple of things around the blogosphere this morning, first, BON's guest writer Horn Brain has an incredibly detailed breakdown of the sham that has become the BCS computers. I don't do math very well, but the logic seems right. Also, Kyle T. King at DawgSports believes Stewie Mandel is an idiot and describes this disdain in such a manner that it's worth your time this morning.

In the traditional media, SAEN's Tim Griffin's Big 12 Insider details Kansas' coach Mark Mangino's success. An excellent read. Tim also highlights the young nature of the Red Raiders, noting that Texas Tech and Colorado are two of the youngest teams in the country:

Texas Tech and Colorado have the youngest rosters in the country, in terms of players on its roster who are either freshmen or sophomores. According to research by several schools, here's the list of the Division I-A teams with the most freshmen and sophomores on their current rosters.
  1. Temple - 63.51 percent
  2. Texas Tech - 63.33 percent
  3. Florida International - 61.19 percent
  4. Colorado - 58.62 percent
  5. North Carolina - 56.27 percent

Texas Tech Football:

The Statesman's Kirk Bohls has a terrific article on the unique nature of Coach Leach. This is worth your time this morning. Perhaps my favorite bit is from the last few paragraphs:

Leach loves the way unbeaten Kansas and Missouri are playing and even raves about the talent level at Texas A&M under lame duck Dennis Franchione.

"I feel like A&M's got good players," he said. "There's probably some dysfunction there."

The Aggies should consider Leach as their next coach but won't. Too much water under that bridge. Asked if he'd consider another job in the offseason, Leach said, "I doubt it. Everything is good here."

LAJ's Don Williams writes today that the Longhorns are vulnerable and very beatable this afternoon. Quarterback Graham Harrell on the Longhorns:

"I don't know how you can judge that,'' Tech quarterback Graham Harrell said. "They're good, just like every other Texas team we play. We had a chance to beat them last year. We played well. If we're going to have a chance to beat them this year, we have to go play well again. If we go play well, we feel like we'll have a shot.''

Senior cornerback Chris Parker is worried about the numerous 4th quarter comebacks by the Longhorns:

"That's one thing coach has been stressing this last couple of weeks is finishing strong,'' Parker said. "That's one thing (conditioning coach) Bennie Wylie stresses during the offseason is finish strong, and that's something we've got to do this weekend.''

Previews:

Ed. Note: I thought that these short previews deserved a little less space, but they still get links.

DMN's Chip Brown previews today's matchup and thinks that Texas wins a nail-biter . . . FWST's previews all the Big 12 games . . . SAEN's Tim Griffin thinks Texas will run early and not need a fifth comeback . . .

Texas Tech Basketball:

LAJ's Jeff Walker is back writing basketball and this morning features newcomer, Trevor Cook, the forward transfer from Texas State. Here's assistant coach Pat Knight on Cook:

"He really used last year to his advantage," Pat Knight said. "He got adjusted a bit, but it's still going to be different come game time. That still might be a little bit of an awakening for him early on. He's gotten better since he got here because I don't think he was this good in high school."

I've got high hopes for Cook, despite having never seen him play. Today's tipoff is at 1:00 p.m., which obviously conflicts with today's football game. There will be an open game day thread for those of you who want to comment on the basketball game and I'll give basketball it's time, just not this afternoon.

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