There's a Chance: There's a slight chance that I'm going to be able to secure a parking pass in the tailgate lot. I don't have many details just yet and there's also the detail of acquiring tickets, but if I can make this happen, we'll have a huge DTN blowout.
Congrats! A huge congratulations in order for the women's cross-country team that had it's best finish ever, finishing 4th over all at the NCAA Cross Country Championships in Terre Haute, Indiana. A huge accomplishment and a DTN tip-of-the-cap to all of these incredible athletes.
A Profit: LAJ's Don Williams writes that the football program will gross (notice that this isn't a net) $1.6 million from Saturday's game with Baylor, although the thought is that this type of revenue could be had every year if the game sells out, here's the athletic department's CFO Bobby Gleason:
"If you can get that $1.6 million, it’s equivalent to getting that every year instead of every other year,’’ said Gleason, Tech senior associate athletic director and chief financial officer. "It certainly helps financially this year.’’
Sticking with Nick: DT's Alex Ybarra writes that head captain Mike Leach is sticking with "Nick", i.e. QB Taylor Potts for the time being:
"We’ll stick with Nick for now," he said. "Potts will be Nick, and we’ll just leave it at that and see how that goes for a while."
And Potts understands that no matter his role, he must stay focused:
"If I’m not starting," he said, "coach pulls me or whatever — It’s my responsibility to this team to stay focused and to stay with it and keep my head in the game and not just lose it."
Playing D: FWST's Dwain Price writes that Texas Tech can play defense too and has some other notebook items. Here's CB Jamar Wall:
"We’ve always been in the offense’s shadow," said left cornerback Jamar Wall. "But it’s something that we don’t worry ourselves about because we know, obviously, if we don’t do great they couldn’t win without us.
"So we just focus on what we can control, and that’s causing turnovers and keeping guys from scoring and just playing our best."
Price also writes from his blog that Leach has no sympathy for Art Briles and Baylor for losing Robert Griffin for the year:
"I have no sympathy whatsoever,'' Leach said, referring to Baylor's loss of Griffin. "I’ve played three guys this season."
Football Notebook: LAJ's Don Williams has his standard football notebook with Leach being pleased with WR Alexander Torres:
"Right now, he’s playing as good as any of our receivers and had a good game last game," Tech coach Mike Leach said Monday. "He was one cut away from having probably 200 yards receiving. Part of it is because he does what he’s coached. He’s a tough guy who does what he’s coached to do and doesn’t regress. Once he makes some progress he doesn’t really lose ground, ever."
. . . someone asked Leach about motion (I mentioned this on Sunday morning in PGT) and Leach agreed that this is something that was new on Saturday:
"We motioned a little more than we had been," Leach said. "We’d been messing with it for a while and hadn’t really broken it out. But we kind of liked some things we’d been doing in practice, so yeah, had a little more motion."
Baylor Bear and Big 12 Links: LAJ's Adam Zuvanich has a ton of good Big 12 notes, including Leach defending Kansas coach Mark Mangino (why is this just in the blog and I'd love to know whether or not this makes the paper):
"Nobody truly knows what went on in Kansas, but my suspicion is Mark’s in the middle of a witchhunt, which is unjustified," said Leach, who coached with Mangino at Oklahoma in 1999. "Heaven forbid somebody should ask a guy to pay attention, focus in and for the sake of all his teammates and coaches and everybody else, pay attention. Well, there’s different ways to ask a guy to do that, and sometimes after you’ve asked them a number of times, you raise the bar.
"And then the interesting thing to me is all this murmuring went from, ‘He hit some guy in the face,’ to, ‘Well, he didn’t even touch anybody, but he just said mean things to him. The mean man told some player something he didnt’ want to hear.’ Well, you know, there’s a mean man in Lubbock that tells people stuff they don’t want to hear, too, and it’s just part of it."
. . . TR's dedfischer with an excellent look at how the Red Raiders play not just on 3rd downs, but on the downs in-between (this is a must read) . . . LAJ's Adam Zuvanich writes that the in-state universities crank up the rivalries . . .
Game Tonight: Texas Tech Red Raiders vs. Stephen F. Austin Lumberjacks
Television: TTSN and ESPN360 :: Time: 7:00 p.m.
Location: Johnson Coliseum, Nacogdoches, TX
Preview and Game Day Thread: Scheduled for 5:00 p.m. post
Ending Road Woes: LAJ's Courtney Linehan and DT's Mike Graham write that the basketball team is hoping to show that they can get a win on the road tonight (from Graham's article):
"If you plan on being anywhere in the postseason, it’s the guys who take care of the home floor and can win some games on the road," he said. "It’s going to be tough. We haven’t beat a Southland opponent on the road yet. It’d be nice to get wins on the road again — we have to. If we don’t start winning on the road, we’re just not going to do anything in the postseason."
And F D`Walyn Roberts hopes his team is focused and play like they're at home (from Linehan's article):
"We’ve got to get our first road win; we haven’t gotten one in a long time," junior forward D’wayln Roberts said. "We’ve got to be real focused, play like we do at home, and we’ll win."
10 Players Signed: The Texas Tech baseball program announced that the staff has signed 10 student-athletes for the 2010-11 team. LAJ's George Watson has an excellent breakdown of the class and has this from head coach Dan Spencer:
"We’re really excited about the fact that we were able to get those young arms, and not just high school arms but a core group of young guys to build and back the classes we have now," Spencer said. "When you start those are the hardest to sign are those premium high school arms. And we’re finally to a point positionally where we’re able to be specific. We knew we wanted a catcher in the class and there was a good one right here in town and that worked out great. But we really like the quality of pitching we got."