Odds and Ends
Vacation Notice
Just going to give everyone a heads-up, I'll be taking some time off on Thursday through Monday. That's right, no morning notes to start your day. You've done a tremendous job this weekend of posting FanPosts with great content. I promoted a couple of them to the front page and it's made my job that much easier, especially during the weekend when I try to get a majority of my writing done. I'll be leaving up to you guys to keep DTN going while I'm out and I'll invite you to kick your feet up and make yourself comfortable.
I'm also going to be taking some time off from DTN's Best of Lubbock. I need to get caught up on posting the results and I just haven't had time to do this lately. In any event, later today I'll be doing a new feature, Upgrade/Downgrade, where you decide if the current starter is better than last year's starter. I'm going to try and do this on Monday and Friday.
Also over the weekend, D'Andra Carter won the NCAA Outdoor Championship in women's discus. Huge congratulations to D'Andra!
Texas Tech Football
Rating Coordinators
CT's Dave Matter ranks the top coordinators in the Big 12 (we all love lists) and acknowledges at the beginning that your Captain Mike Leach isn't included, although he is the most accomplished offensive coordinator in the Big 12, that also happens to be a head football coach. Defensive coordinator checks in at #11:
11. Ruffin McNeil, defense, Texas Tech: The Red Raiders actually discovered the concept of playing defense last fall, posting some of the league’s stingiest numbers through September and October. Eventually, though, in blowout losses to Oklahoma and Mississippi, McNeill’s defense looked all too familiar to Texas Tech fans. Still, the Raiders’ glimmer of progress last year gives McNeill the slight edge over Texas A&M veteran coordinator Joe Kines.
There was a glimmer of progress last year, although I think that most Red Raider fans want to see a little more creativity from McNeill this year.
Marlon Williams #17
Fox34 continues their countdown of the top 25 players for Texas Tech and Marlon Williams checks in at #17. Big congrats to Fox34 the updated website and making their video embeddable:
Vacated Wins
There's been some discussion about what Alabama's vacated wins (i.e the Cotton Bowl) means to Texas Tech and I thought Roll Bama Roll had a really good explanation of Alabama's violations and what they meant to their opponents.
Texas Tech Basketball
Kasib Powell Give DTN a Shoutout! Sorta
Woooo! For those of you who don't remember, former Red Raider Kasib Powell checked in with NBA blog Ridiculous Upside (one of my favorite blogs on the SB Nation network) and he's checked in again and talks about the tough decision that a player has to make on whether or not to play in the D-League or find employment in Europe. Kasib is answering any questions that you might have about life just a bit outside of the NBA.
We wish Kasib well in all of his future endeavors.
Texas Tech Baseball
Chad Bettis with Team USA
LAJ's George Watson checks in on SO pitcher Chad Bettis who is hoping to make Team USA and for those high school players that were picked in last week's MLB draft, college was the best choise for Bettis:
"I wouldn’t have it any other way now that I think about it," Bettis said.
"College was definitely the right choice for me and I have a lot of people to thank for that. The draft is another year down the road. So much of the stuff I’ve learned has been mentally and physically, stuff I never would have guessed if I’d gone directly to pro ball in the draft."
And Bettis is looking forward to next year:
"I think the next step is to be more consistent with my command, with all my pitches," Bettis said. "That is something scouts look for. I have to develop my curve ball a little better, and other than that, just keep progressing in all the ways I have been."
Brett Anderson in the MLB
Excellent article from LAJ's George Watson on the Oakland A's, and former Red Raider, Brett Anderson adjusting to life in the big leagues. Go read the whole thing. Good stuff.