I've Got Nothing Else: This is it for me for the day. With no game this week, it's been tough, but we've all made it through relatively unscathed. For those of you who are just now checking in this week, we've done quite a bit this week, including a look forward to the Texas Tech football offense in 2010 and defense in 2010. Not only that, we've discussed the preseason story lines, MVP's, depth charts and looking ahead to 2010 and 2011 for the men's basketball team. Hopefully that will keep you occupied the rest of the day.
Excellent Thoughts on the Spread: Smart Football's Chris Brown sat down with a friend of his, Hemlock, to discuss all things spread and run-and-shoot. An incredibly interesting read, and if there's one thing that I take away from this is that if it is incredibly difficult to have multiple formations, but still have a relatively accurate and effective offense? Please, please, please go read the whole thing, but here's a blockquote for discussion purposes:
I’ve coached both high-school and D-I football and I’ve learned the hard way that it is either impossible, in the case of high school, or or so difficult to the point of being prohibitive, as in the case of college ball, to effectively implement a multiple-formation intensive system and to consistently succeed with it. At my last D-I school we ran the true west coast offense, as my head coach was a legitimate disciple of Bill Walsh. Not only was it difficult to install all of our formations, but it made our players hesitant; they were so worried about getting lined up correctly that they were not able to concentrate on running the play. Another unintended consequence was that the different looks we installed confused our players more than the defenses we faced. It sounds odd, but our players, despite all our efforts to the contrary, deep down believed that every time we ran a route concept from a new formation we were in fact running a different play. This problem reinforces a point that June Jones made once about his former quarterback Colt Brennan. Even though they ran their "Levels package" primarily from one formation ("Early"), Brennan, for nearly a year, believed that the different level distributions constituted a different individual play. It took a year, according to Jones, until Brennan basically understood that regardless of who was the over and who was under runner that they were running the same play. Now, remember, this was all being run from one formation; imagine what it is like when you have literally a dozen different formations from which to run that one play. We found out the hard way: We had a lot of formations and our players thought we were drawing up all kinds of new plays.
If there was ever a question about needing time to understand Leach's system, I think this bit (as well as additional thoughts in the article) that asking or thinking that a freshman or redshirt freshman could start for Texas Tech seems like it's asking quite a bit from that player.
Leach on Friday Night Lights: I really don't need to give you any sort of context, just enjoy:
Mike Leach on FNL (via jrad115)
Batch is a Texas Tech Workhorse: FWST's Dwain Price profiles RB Baron Batch and Captain Mike Leach thinks highly of this Texas Tech running back:
"He’s one of the most conscientious guys I’ve ever dealt with," Leach said. "He’s ambitious and wants things to go well.
"But as he settles down and just stays within the parameters of his job, he can be remarkably explosive."
And C Shawn Byrnes loves blocking for a guy like Batch:
"That was just amazing how he punched that in," Byrnes said. "He’s just such a strong back, so it’s great to have him behind us.
"He is underrated and he’s a great runner, and he loves the game of football."
Byrnes said he gets an extra charge when he’s blocking for Batch.
"He runs so hard and is just such a motivational leader, too," Byrnes said. "He’s very vocal and he really wants to get everybody upbeat and excited to play.
"It’s just great blocking for a guy like that, somebody who is always going to have your back and always motivates you to play, and somebody you always want out there with you."
Academic Team: Per ESPN's Tim Griffin, WR Alexander Torres and SS Cody Davis have made the 2009 CoSIDA/ESPN the Magazine Academic All-District team. Congrats to both of those guys.
Young and Denton-Ryan Win: Denton Record Chronicle's Matt Martinez has a good write-up on last night's game between Denton-Ryan and Denton Guyer. Texas Tech commit QB Scotty Young for Ryan had a rough start, but didn't get rattled. I had forgotten that UT commit Taylor Bible played for Guyer and made an early impact, but Ryan poured it on in the 2nd half. Young was 24-31 : 297 Yds : 5 TD : 1 Int.
Knights Together Again: Yahoo! Sports Jason King with a good article about the seemingly ever-evolving relationship between Pat Knight and his father, Bob Knight. Here's PK being very honest about his relationship with BK:
"It’s good to have him around again," Pat said. "For awhile he didn’t want to be involved at all."
Snip
"We didn’t speak a lot last year," Pat Knight said. "And when we did talk it wasn’t like it should be. The whole situation really caused a strain on our relationship. It was strange. Neither one of us knew how to handle it."
As close as these two seemed as father-and-son and as coach-and-assistant-coach, it certainly is strange. King details that PK and BK have worked out any differences they may have had:
At the conclusion of last season, Pat said he and his father had a lengthy conversation and aired out all of their grievances. Bob told Pat that he was trying to allow space so his son could "do his own thing." Pat, though, told his father that he wanted him around more and that his suggestions were not only welcomed, but encouraged.
"By the end [of the talk] we had put it all behind us," Pat said. "Now we’re hanging out again. He’s helping me. We’re getting along as well as we have since I stopped playing.
"He’s actually been at our last three practices."
I'm torn on the idea as to whether or not it's good to have BK around so much as PK tries to establish his identity, and perhaps that's what BK was doing all along is letting PK figure things out on his own.
Zeno Picked in D-League Draft: Former Red Raider Martin Zeno was picked with the 2nd pick in the 3rd round to the Erie BayHawks. Congrats to Zeno, and I hope he accomplishes his goal of getting to the NBA.