Texas Tech Football:
RaiderPower's breakdown of practice yesterday is certainly worth your time. Too much stuff to discuss this early in the morning for me, but grab yourself a cup of coffee and read the whole thing.
Right on cue, LAJ's Don Williams has a piece on the weakside linebacker competition between senior Chad Hill or sophomore Marlon Williams. Don considers that this position still hasn't been decided although Hill has seen limited practice time. Marlon acknowledges where he needs to improve:
Setencich is known to take the safe approach and go with players who have more game time experience. I don't mean to knock Chad, but I want the player on the field who is going to make the most plays and I could care less which one it is. This linebacking group needs to improve as a unit. The younger guys need to realize that they have an opportunity to take advantage of a situation where the players with more experience haven't been playmakers. This is, by far the most interesting position to watch as the season approaches.
In Don's Texas Tech Football Notebook he talks with ESPN analyst and Red Raider father to Adam James, Craig James. James thinks that there's a lot of competition on the field at practice, but likes how Coach Leach runs practice:
"I like the schedule he has -- classroom, walkthrough, classroom, walkthrough, lunch and come practice. Really teaching. Playing a Big 12 schedule and the length of games they do, you don't want to lose it in August."
From what I can gather Leach's philosophy is not to practice more, but to practice consistently.
Williams talks with O-line coach Matt Moore who says that Blake Emert will be at center.
The coaching staff is still deciding as to whether or not all-world lineman, Lonnie Edwards will redshirt this year. Personally, it seems as if there's plenty of depth right now that burning a year on a series or two just isn't worth it. Give Edwards a full year to develop and he'll be an absolute monster in a year.
Williams acknowledges that the following players made plays on Monday: Colby Whitlock, Sam Fehoko, Bront Bird, Michael Crabtree, Eric Morris, and Daniel Charbonnet. Make sure and read the notebook for all the details.
Hat-tip to K-State Sports and Beyond for pointing us to the Kansas City Star's Blair Kerkhoff's ranking of the Big 12 units. As KSSAB deftly pointed out, the Big 12 bloggers have already done this.
Texas Tech Basketball:
I actually smiled when I heard that Esmir Rizvic was going to have another half of a year of eligibility. It can and has been debated as to whether or not Longar Longar intentionally or accidentally hit Rizvic, but I thought that Longar was reckless and negligent and people do get punished for both of those acts, but not as severely as willful and intentional acts. I thought the punishment fit the crime, if you will, and I don't view Longar Longar as any sort of villain, but rather a kid who made a mistake and hurt someone in the process. It's not as if Longar had to sit out half of a season and I have no doubt that Rizvic's fate of recovering from a broken orbital bone was far worse than Longar's two game suspension.
The coaching staff will probably look for Esmir to pay in the latter half of the basketball season so that he could be used in any conference tournament, or hopefully in an NCAA tournament run.