Hat-tip to RndRckTTU, don't forget that if you want to bid on the game-worn jerseys from Saturday's game, the bidding starts this morning at 8:00 a.m. And if you need a little bit of motivation, then watch QB Taylor Potts in his post-game press conference, who didn't take any questions, but just talked about how being around these wounded warriors affected him personally. And it appears that the soldiers that visited with the team had a big affect on the players, head coach Tommy Tuberville said this after the game:
But it was a team effort. And it was great to get that win. First conference win at home for a lot of us. And our fans stayed with us, and it was really sweet.
But, again, it's all about the players. We had some of the Wounded Warriors in the locker room at the end of the game. You know, they're in there crying, and it means a lot to our players. All week long they put a lot into it, knowing that they were going to play for our soldiers that have been injured and even the soldiers that are still fighting for us. So what a great night. Great night for college football and great night for Texas Tech.
1. HOW IMPORTANT IS THE BOWL STREAK AND DO YOU HAVE PREDICTION FOR A BOWL GAME? | SI's Stewart Mandel and Pre-Snap Read's Ryan Myerberg are both predicting that Texas Tech go bowling, Mandel thinks Texas Tech plays against Northwestern in the Dallas Classic and Myerberg thinks the Red Raiders face off against UTEP in the Texas Bowl. I've never kept up with this sort of thing, but I know a lot of people do keep up with this sort of thing. I know we're getting a little ahead of ourselves, but I was curious how important to you is the bowl streak (16 seasons?) and where do you think the Red Raiders will land or where would you like for Texas Tech to go bowling?
2. HOW IMPORTANT WAS THE RUNNING GAME TO SATURDAY'S WIN? | I thought after the game that a big reason why Texas Tech won the game was because Texas Tech was able to run the ball, and per LAJ's Don Williams, DC James Willis also credits Texas Tech's ability to consume time on the clock helped:
“It was tremendous. We had time to rest the kids,” Tech defensive coordinator James Willis said. “We didn’t have too many kdis playing with us. We had probably about 15 kids who played with us total, and we rotated them pretty good.
“The offense held the ball long enough for us to rest and make adjustments, and that’s always huge in the ballgame. It’s always huge when you control the ball.”
I hadn't considered that there were only about 15 players that saw time on defense, but it doesn't surprise me as it seemed like the only players that were rotated was the defensive line. Given that the defense is essentially decimated due to injury and the running game may have helped the defense, do you think that running the ball 50 times and doing it all day long helped the offense be able to eat up the last 3:57 of the game and helped the defense stay fresh?
3. HOW WOULD YOU GRADE THE REPORT CARD? | The LAJ has a report card from the game, what would you change and what would you change it to?
4. HOW WOULD YOU HANDLE THE QUARTERBACK SITUATION? | DT's Jon Arnold writes that with Potts' performance on Saturday, Potts solidified his spot as the starter for this team (and Tuberville confirmed it in the post-game quotes). A lot of folks are saying that it's time to eat some crow regarding what some of us (I'm including myself) think about Potts. Personally, I still feel the same way, which is that Potts is a solid quarterback, but he's not great and he still averaged about 6.5 YPA and had a TD:INT ratio of 3:1, which is pretty close to his season averages. Here's what Tuberville said after the game:
I would think tonight that Taylor for this week coming up. We'll continue to work Sheffield, and I think that again, he's a good quarterback. It's just the situation worked out tonight where he didn't do as well as Taylor, so he'll be the starter going into this week.
But it could change as the week goes on. It just depends how both of them respond and we're just looking for the best guy.
It sounds like it's Potts' job for the time being, but he's not closing the door on Sheffield. Is this the right way to handle the quarterback situation, which is for it to be fairly fluid?
5. ARE YOU GOING TO ANY HIGH SCHOOL PLAYOFF GAMES? I ran across this article from The Old Coach (a Rivals.com Texas high school football site) that mentions a couple of Texas Tech commits, RB Bradley Marquez (Odessa), who rushed for 345 yards and 6 touchdowns last week, and DL James Castleman (Amarillo), who leads a physical defense. I've created a page this morning of the 2011 class (which you can always find on the left sidebar) for an easy reference. Is anyone planning on going out and watching any high school playoff football which might include any Texas Tech commits?
I've copied the five questions after the jump for super easy commenting.
Miscellaneous Links: The LAJ has a short notebook, including that the game-time for Saturday's game against OU has been set, which is 2:30 p.m., as well as some quotes from the offensive and defensive coordinators (there's usually video of the coordinators, but I couldn't find it this morning). . . LAJ's Courtney Linehan writes that PF Paul Cooper had surgery to remove some bone spurs in his ankle and is out 4-6 weeks and SF Theron Jenkins still hasn't practiced (I guess I'd rather Cooper and Jenkins work out their injury issues now, but Cooper was injured almost all of last year. Let's hope that the staff has figured out Cooper's injury woes) . . .
1. HOW IMPORTANT IS THE BOWL STREAK AND DO YOU HAVE PREDICTION FOR A BOWL GAME?2. HOW IMPORTANT WAS THE RUNNING GAME TO SATURDAY'S WIN?
3. HOW WOULD YOU GRADE THE REPORT CARD?
4. HOW WOULD YOU HANDLE THE QUARTERBACK SITUATION?
5. ARE YOU GOING TO ANY HIGH SCHOOL PLAYOFF GAMES?