Texas Tech Football:
As I metioned yesterday, the Lincoln Journal Star's Steven M. Sipple talked with Captain Leach about the upcoming season, most of the quotes were included in yesterday's post, so I won't re-hash them here. The article itself mentions LeRoy Neiman, a painter, who sometimes uses football as a muse for his artwork. I had seen Neiman's work before, but didn't know his name, so I thought I'd share with the rest of the class some of Neiman's football works.
The Lincoln Journal Star also previews each team on Nebraska's 2008 schedule, which includes Texas Tech:
Oct. 11, Lubbock, Texas
The background: Mike Leach’s Red Raiders are coming off a 9-4 season and are considered by some to be a top-10 team this year. Often good, but rarely great, Texas Tech is hoping this is the year it takes the next step and challenges for the Big 12 South title.
Coming out of spring: Quarterback Graham Harrell (5,705 yards passing) and receiver Michael Crabtree (1,962 yards receiving) are going to get their yards and points. They might even get some Heisman consideration, too. But it’s the improvement of Tech’s defense, led by coordinator Ruffin McNeill, that has Red Raider fans giddy about what could come in 2008. McNeill has simplified the defensive schemes and the kids have responded. "It doesn’t mean that I won’t coach them up," McNeill told ESPN.com. "But we backed off and eliminated some of the thinking and reading they were doing and just let them play."
Quotable: "I think this is the year we break through," Crabtree told ESPN. "It’s the year I plan on doing it. We’ve got everybody back on offense, and the defense is going to be better. The goal is to go undefeated."
I haven't seen this mentioned anywhere, but thought this quote from Captain Leach on whether or not there are too many bowl gamess was interesting, to say the least:
"Football for the sake of football is pretty good," Leach said. "We've got plenty of people interested in playing in bowls. If they added a few more, it would suit me."
I think this tends to lend itself to Captain Leach's chaos theory of a playoff system, which isn't really so much chaos, but to include as many teams as humanly possible.
But the quote that caught me is the sentiment, that football + football = pretty good, is a tremendous thought as we are about to move into the off-season. I wonder if Leach is watching Arena League Football thinking that prior to a play letting a guy go in motion towards the line of scrimmage would be an awesome addition to college football.