Odds and Ends
Still Catching Up
I'm still catching up a bit, so if I've failed to give you credit for a FanPost or a link that you've already posted on DTN then I apologize in advance.
Corn Nation's Wolvie looks at the where all of the Big 12 teams finished in just about every athletic competition, both men's and women's. Texas Tech finished 5th overall, and I didn't know this, but Texas Tech only opts out of 4 of the sanctioned sports.
Texas Tech Football
What Is Average
Big Red Network's Brandon Vogel takes a look at what is average for college football teams in certain statistical categories. A ton of work went into this and Texas Tech made the list as on of the top 16 programs over the past five years and the ultimate conclusion is that there are certain defensive statistics that correlate to program success, moreso that offensive statistics. I've always thought that Captain Leach's plan was to win games with his offense first and if he was able to have success, build the defense.
Defense Behind the Offense?
RRS.com's Joe Yeager writes that its silly that an anonymous Big 12 coach feels that the defense is way behind the offense. I don't have a problem with this thought, especially when you consider the idea that the total offense finished 4th and the total defense finished 79th. That's a pretty big gap. Yeager also mentions that the biggest gripe is the comment by this assistant coach that Mike Leach only cares about the offense, and again, there's certainly some truth to that, but not entirely true. Yeager cites the firing of Sentencich as one of the reasons and that the Big 12 defenses are great overall, but I'll echo the sentiments above, in that I truly believe that Leach's biggest priority was to win as quickly as possible and a successful offense was the easiest method of making that happen. Leach isn't a fool, and I'm sure he's keenly aware that the defense has lagged behind the offense, but the way you improve a defense is by sheer talent and in my opinion, this process started at essentially ground zero and has continued through Leach's tenure (i.e. more talent each and every year).
Reviewing the TAMU Game
From Fox34, relive some good times: