Double-T Nation News:
Make sure and check out djollie111's piece on Texas Tech great Sally Kipyego.
Rock M Nation's The Boy takes a look at the Big 12 South offenses next year (possibly the Big 12 South defenses later today) position by position. It was a good read for me, just to get a sense of who is leaving, from the quarterback to the offensive lines.
Texas Tech Football:
LAJ's Don Williams writes that opposing quarterbacks are not having the same success running the ball that they used to, which seems to be an odd point to make considering Texas Tech hasn't faced a true running quarterback since Nevada's Colin Kaepernick. OSU's Zach Robinson had the reputation for running, as did UT's Colt McCoy and TAMU's Jerrod Johnson, but the truth of the matter is that none of them are running quarterbacks that Griffin is, but they are all certainly fairly mobile. In any event, here's senior defensive end Jake Ratliff:
"He’s probably the most talented running quarterback we’ll face this year," Ratliff said. "Everybody’s seen what he can do with the ball. I mean, if he scrambles he’s going to make a play. If you leave him in the pocket and don’t get any pressure on him, he can do pretty much whatever he wants with the ball. He’s a very talented athlete and can definitely run."
And the Captain:
"He’s running the quarterback a lot," Leach said. "It’s kind of run, play-action stuff - Vince Youngish. To me, it looks like some stuff (Briles) did at Stephenville, but a lot of stuff that’s similar to what Texas did back when they had Vince Young."
BCS Talk:
I wasn't sure where to put all of this, so I decided to make the BCS it's own section. And thank you to each and every one of you for having some really good discussion (i.e. Skin Patrol and Tech92). In any event, I thought that Barking Carnival had a good explanation as to how the BCS works. Crimson and Cream Machine articulates their arguments again as to why Texas Tech should not be an afterthought to Texas:
* Any argument that tosses Texas Tech out the window should be deemed null-and-void. As long as the three teams all have the same record Texas Tech is a major player in this deal. Yes, it is convenient for Oklahoma fans to have them in there because the Sooners can’t stand on their own. Yes, it is convenient for Texas fans to put the Red Raiders out to pasture because it causes the Sooner argument to collapse. Neither one of those should be reasons for the Red Raiders to be included or excluded for that matter. Tech is in there because they earned their way in and you can’t make an argument otherwise.
I promoted adubb05's FanPost from yesterday and there's been a ton of good discussion there and Skin Patrol had a number of interesting thoughts which I think he articulates better than I ever could:
The way I visualize them moving us past Texas is that, once OU is eliminated from the three-way-tie, they have to seriously re-evaluate their rankings. And they will have weeks to do that because WE’LL be the ones playing an extra game and we would be the ones winning a conference champion. And everyday voting coaches and Harris Pollers will hear "Do we really want to send Texas to the National Championship even though they didn’t win their conference and the team that did win their conference beat them head-to-head and has a better record?" How could they possibly justifying doing that?Snip
I’m not really interested in what national writers think about Tech right now. We’re a few days removed from the worst loss of the season, of course they’re down on us. The idea that their brains are immutably set is simply too ridiculous to assume for me, because it likewise means I have to view Texas at 11-1 as somehow more deserving as a 12-1 Texas Tech. I’m not going to assume an illogical result.
What is great is that for the next few days every single Longhorn is gonna chant the mantra "head to head" (because that’s where they lead OU), IF Oklahoma loses (a big if) then that chant should bite em in the ass.
ESPN's Big 12 blogger Tim Griffin answers the mailbag, but mainly deals with the issue of Big 12 tiebreakers, while SI's Stewart Mandel writes that the current BCS mess can be solved with a plus-one system, which I'm not so sure I agree with this premise.
Texas Tech Basketball:
Last night Texas Tech beat Southeastern Louisiana 63-74, in what appeared to be a little confusing of a game. Official boxscore and easier-to-read boxscore. The game was supposed to be on TTTN last night but it wasn't, so I didn't get to see any of it. LAJ's Jeff Walker has the game story from last night and notes that D'walyn Roberts had a really good stat line: (6-9 from the field) 13 points; 9 rebounds; 1 assist; 1 turnover; and 3 blocks. That's not even close to being the same player from last year. Here's senior Alan Voskuil on Roberts:
"He’s an energy player," Voskuil added. "He can defend guards, he can get rebounds and guard forwards. As you saw, he can block shots. He’s a versatile player and that’s something we need on this team."
Junior Knight had this to say about his halftime speech and wanting his team to focus on defense:
"I can’t say most of it on TV. Are we on cable? If this was HBO or Showtime, we’d be in good shape," he said. "We really kind of challenged them from a defensive standpoint. When we weren’t hitting shots, it looked to me like guys were pouting, walking back and giving up quick buckets. To me, if you’re not hitting shots you buckle down on defense and try to get some easy baskets off your defense."
There were a couple of real encouraging points here, the first being that Texas Tech out-rebounded SE La. by 10 (42-32) which is not something that would have happened last year. Aside from Roberts, Voskuil had 7, Roberson had 5, Singletary had 6 as did Cohadarevic, who seems to be picking up his game after adjusting a bit. This team is also shooting very well, and I hope that remains a constant with all of the scoring options on this team.
The negatives are the 17 turnovers, of which Roberson had 4. Singletary also had 4 TO's and as a team they need to be more conscious about valuing each possession. I don't think I'm being harsh if I harp a bit on the free throws, where as a team, the Red Raiders only made 66.7% and I'd love to see that figure stay around 70% for the year, especially at home.