Time Off: I essentially took the entire weekend off, which means that I've written very little over the past 48 hours. In fact, I had a family dinner on Saturday night and I haven't even watched the game, which means that at some point, I'll try to get to some post game thoughts this week on the basketball team since they do not play again until Saturday. This week is going to be a busy week with National Signing Day on Wednesday and the Recruiting Review Dinner on Thursday evening.
Bennie Wylie = Strength and Conditioning God: This weekend, strength and conditioning coach Bennie Wylie was hired by Tennessee in the same position, and there's been a lot of hand-wringing over the whole thing. I get that's what we do around here, but I'm still not sure about all of the details about the situation, so I'm reserving some judgment about how all of this played out. Wylie could have been offered the job full-time (not being released to the public), but decided that he wanted to take what he felt like was a better job. Wylie could have been told by Tuberville that he has 6 months to find new employment, the sooner the better. You get where I'm going here, but ultimately, right now, we really don't know. All we know is that Texas Tech lost a coach that seemed to make players better.
As far as making the claim about how Wylie is one of the best in the country, I have no idea how someone like myself could ever quantify or back that sort of statement up. That's not to diminish what Wylie did for the players here at Texas Tech, but it just seems that right now, DTN is leading the Big 12 in knee-jerk reactions. For example, Arkansas QB/OLB Joe Carmical commits to Texas Tech and ESPN and Scout didn't even have a profile or a grade on him. There were huge question marks forming above a large contingency of DTN faithful as Tuberville has given a scholarship to a player that hadn't even been rated by a recruiting service. OMG! WTF! Then this weekend I found some YouTube video on Carmical and son of a gun, that kid looks like he can play.
Again, I understand that Wylie was incredibly important to the improvement of the Texas Tech program, but there seems to be quite a bit of blame on Tuberville, which may be unwarranted, and the new strength and conditioning coach may be better than Wylie (he could also be the same or worse, etc.). I keep thinking if the East Carolina Pirates or Tennessee Volunteers are having the same discussions (i.e., "How could Ruffin replace Coach X, because Coach X was vital to the program? Who the hell is this Lincoln Riley and he's too young to coordinate an offense"; or "How could Coach Dooley replace the strength and conditioning Coach Y? Coach Y was the best and the best we could do is hire the strength and conditioning coach from Texas Tech?" - although I recognize that Kiffin could have taken the strength and conditioning coach with him to USC.).
The 2010 Class is Falling Apart, Who Do We Blame: Lots of discussion yesterday about how Tuberville has or has not done a good enough job in the current class. There was talk about how the current class has dropped from 24th in the country to 34th. Again . . . OMG! WTF! What the hell is Tuberville doing or not doing? And yes, I've seen this article (I've modified the link to be a "no follow" link) and I've now added the Examiner to the list of websites that I hate, joining the Bleacher Report.
If I'm going to assess blame on anyone, it's going to be the administration for putting the football program in this situation. My ire is till there. I'm not a recruiting expert, so I don't have a clue if Tuberville is doing a good job or a bad job. For me, I'm willing to give him more than three weeks to try to keep a group of 18 year old high school players all on the same page. Personally, I give Tuberville a pass for the 2010 class. Neither a pass or a fail. It's a tough situation and I think he's done a pretty good job of keeping most of the 4-star players on board.
As far as the 2011 recruiting class? The gloves will come off!
It's really fun being knee-jerk reaction blogger so that I'll get a ton of hits and I'll have all sorts of hot-sports-opinions and controversial comments, but that's just not who I am.
Porter Re-Affirms: One of the reasons why Texas Tech dropped from 24th to 34th was the possible de-commitment of DB Tre'Vante Porter. Last night, per NewsOK's Ryan Aber Porter re-affirmed his commitment to Texas Tech (hat-tip to RaiderGrad for the FanShot). Porter is a 4-star player from Oklahoma and I'd imagine that once Rivals has the time to update their rankings, this should have some affect.
Three New Commitments: Tuberville is doing his best to stay busy before National Signing Day with three new commitments over the weekend. To remind everyone, here's a list of the recent de-commits:
De-Commits:
RB Aaron Spikes
OL Denton Simek
DE Kedrick Dial
LB Fred Harvey
OL Javious Townsend
Keep in mind that these de-commitments may be the player and it may be the coaching staff. Sometimes the feeling may be mutual.
In any event, the new commitments are as follows: Houston, TX area DL Mike Jones, Miami, FL DB Phillip Warren and Miami, FL WR Lavaughn Whigham. Again, none of these guys are highly rated, but then again, everyone's highlight reel looks great because I have the size of Wes Welker, but the speed of Louis Vasquez. And yes, their offer lists don't seem impressive, but neither was Carmical's list of offered schools and he seems like he's a pretty good player.
Please note that I've added a YouTube link to all three players under the position and you can let me know if there are other clips that I've missed in the comments.
Mike Jones
Position: DT
YouTube: Clip 1
Rivals Profile
Scout Profile
ESPN Profile 40
Ht: 6'3"
Wt: 260 lbs
Forty: 4.92
High School: Kempner (Sugar Land, TX)
Phillip Warren
Position: CB
YouTube: Clip 1
Rivals Profile
Scout Profile
ESPN Profile N/A
Ht: 5'9"
Wt: 177 lbs
Forty: 4.38
High School: Southridge (Miami, FL)
Lavaughn Whigham
Position: WR
YouTube: Clip 1
Rivals Profile
Scout Profile
ESPN Profile 40 Grade
Ht: 6'1"
Wt: 175 lbs
Forty: 4.58
High School: Southridge (Miami, FL)
Miscellaneous Links: I'm sure that I need to give some credit to some DTN readers for some of these links, maybe jeffinhouston, but I'm running out of time, so give yourself some props in the comments . . . the teaser on this Scout.com story says that OL commit James Polk will make a final decision on Tuesday, but keep in mind that Matt Moore was the one recruiting Polk and Moore has been retained. Polk, I think, is deciding between Texas Tech and Kansas . . . per Salt Lake Tribune's Lya Wodraska the California RB Lucky Radley has narrowed his list of schools to Utah, Texas Tech and North Carolina:
"They play in one of the best conferences in the country, the facilities are great, the coaches are great and it's just a cool college town," he said. "The stadium is big and the academics are superb. Everything is nice."