Double-T Nation Daily Diatribe :: 02.19.10

Lonnie Dean "Primo" McCurry RIP: Per the LAJ, McCurry passed away on Wednesday and played on the 1939 football team that went 9-1-1 and McCurry also spoke to the 2008 Texas Tech football team before the Texas game:

Lonnie was invited by Coach Mike Leach to give the 2008 football team a motivational speech before the biggest game in Tech history. As Tech defeated the University of Texas, the players and coaches felt Primo's inspirational words were a key factor in the upset.

McCurry also served his country in World War II and had a loving wife that passed away only a few weeks ago.  Rest in peace sir.

Sarcasm Alert:  This mornings DTN DD is riddled with sarcasm in certain places.  I have chosen not to utilize the sarcasm font [<sarc>enter text here</sarc>] but instead thought it would be more fun for you to guess where I'm being sarcastic, or maybe I'm not being sarcastic at all.

Outfield:
LF - Michael Reed (Sr.); CF - Taylor Ashby (Sr.); RF - Barrett Barnes (Fr.)
Infield:
SS - Joey Kenworthy (Sr.)     2ND - Garrett Totten (So.);
3RD - Nick Popescu (Jr.)                                  1ST - Stephen Hagen (Jr.)
C - Jeremy Mayo (So.)
DH - Scott LeJeune (So.)

*Click on the score for boxscore. Texas Tech series preview (pdf).

Opening Day:  It should be absolutely beautiful for opening day.  If you don't have a thing to do today, go see today's games.  P Chad Bettis is your starting pitcher for the year, a position he certainly deserves, and he was recently named to USA Baseball's Golden Spikes Watch List.  Congrats!

New Role for Bettis:  LAJ's George Watson talks with P Chad Bettis who will be making the change from dominant relief pitcher to starting pitcher this year:

"I think starting this year is what I want to do, for sure," Bettis said. "I have to prove myself and prove to everyone else by starting that I can come out and go eight or nine innings and then hand it to (new closer Jay Johnson) to get the win. Closing you have to come in with the mentality of having to get the first guy out and role from there. Starting you control how fast the pace of the game goes and all that."

High Hopes:  DT's Adam Coleman writes that the team has high hopes for this season and the team will be leaning on Seward County C.C. pitcher Bobby Doran to fill a starting role this year:

"I expect to step into a role where I can be a dominant pitcher in the Big 12," he said. "Coming here, really filling in behind Chad. Not just let him be the lone soldier out there competing. We have talent on the mound. We’re just going to go out there and compete and do what we do best."

Blaspehmy!  DT's Brett Wingarner (this video is really well done, as is almost everything the DT sports department puts out there) talks with P Chad Bettis and head coach Dan Spencer about this upcoming season.  I title this section "Blasphemy!" because head coach Dan Spencer has the audacity to talk about wanting to go to Omaha and win a national championship.  How dare he have such lofty goals! 

Needing Victory:  DT's Mike Graham writes that the men's basketball team needs a victory at home this Saturday against a slumping Texas Longhorn team. SF Mike Singletary talk about what the team needs to do tomorrow:

"Any time you can catch a team on a little losing skid, it’s kind of a good thing," he said. "But we know they’re going to come in here ready to play, they always do. So we’ve just got to be ready for them, play defense and do the things the coaches want us to do."

And PF Darko Cohadarevic says that the team played well the last time these teams met (without Darko who was suspended for the game and PF D`Walyn Roberts who was injured) and should try to accomplish the same goals:

"We’ve got to have pretty much the same game  plan we had in Austin," he said. "We saw they had a hard time guarding our motion offense, but we know we can’t post up much against their big men."

Uninformed Blogger Agrees with Homers:  ESPN's Heather Dinich (who is helping pick up the the slack after Tim Griffin's departure), who normally writes about the ACC, writes that she believes that the Texas Tech offense will essentially remain the same:

More balanced at Texas Tech doesn't mean the Red Raiders' offense will suddenly become a 50-50 split. More like Texas Tech will still look like Texas Tech.

The Red Raiders do have the personnel, though, to add a few extra carries per game. And they certainly could afford to. Last year, Texas Tech was 115th in the country in rushing offense, averaging 84 yards per game. They were No. 2 in the country in passing offense, at 386.77 yards per game. The Red Raiders averaged 24.5 carries per game compared to 51.5 pass attempts per game. You can expect a slight shift in those numbers, but not a dramatic change.

Don't you see?  Even Dinich knows that the offense is going to remain the same and she just started blogging about Texas Tech this week.  Everyone needs to relax.

Photo Ops:  This is unacceptable.  It's been well chronicled that head coach Tommy Tuberville is out meeting people, talking about championships (Tubs should know better than to have goals and aspirations, i.e. see comment about baseball head coach Dan Spencer), shaking hands, and meeting with alumni.  For shame.

With that being said, there are a couple of photo galleries on the official site, which includes some photos of Tubs (that honestly make me giggle) in and around the Texas Tech campus, as well as Tubs and some of his staff (which includes Sonny Cumbie and another assistant coach that I don't initially recognize) meeting with a local fire station.  Also there's a photo gallery of some of pre-spring workouts. 

My initial impressions:  Everyone's pants are too long except for S&CC Joe Walker; RB coach Chad Scott looks like he's 12; and DC James Willis could whip my rear with one hand tied behind his back.