Potts Named Starter: The official site made it official, QB Taylor Potts beat out QB Steven Sheffield for the starting quarterback position (big hat-tip to jeffinhouston for the FanPost). Here's the official site with head coach Tommy Tuberville's comment:
"We have a very talented group of quarterbacks and are excited about every one of them," said Texas Tech head coach Tommy Tuberville. "The competition during camp between Taylor (Potts) and Steven (Sheffield) has been outstanding but at the end of the day we can only have one starter. Taylor has done a tremendous job and we feel like he has gotten better each and every day. There is no doubt that Steven has also improved during camp and will still be fighting to take over that starting job every day at practice. That kind of competition will only make us stronger as the season goes along."
I've said it before and I'll say it again, I think that QB Steven Sheffield was the better quarterback last year, but I think no matter who was named as the starter, both Potts and Sheffield were going to play this year. Neither quarterback is perfect and both have their faults and I'm beginning to wonder if the coaching staff saw the same thing that we see and/or saw. So many DTN members mention that Sheffield really sparked the team coming off the bench against New Mexico and Michigan St., which is true. And this weekend, OC Brown mentioned that he's watched every practice and every game last year. Is it possible that the staff sees a similar situation to what we saw at the end of the year last year, which is that Sheffield will most likely give the team a spark it didn't have if the offense is in a funk?
I don't know what else to add other than to encourage you to feel free to add your own two cents about the decision, whether it be here or in jeffinhouston's FanPost. LAJ's Don Williams and ESPN Dallas' Jeff Caplan write about the decision. DMN's Mike Graham also wonders if picking Potts means an end to Texas Tech's offense. Really? How about if Texas Tech fires Neal Brown three games into a season? I think this would be a better indicator that Tubs might want to change the Texas Tech offense. Second, I wonder if Graham wrote the same article last year when Leach chose Potts this time last year? Frustrating.
I will say this, I don't think that Tuberville could have handled this any better. He treated them about as fairly as possible, at least in the public. Taking both of them to the Big 12 Media Days and when either Sheffield or Potts talked to the media, they both talked to the media. The only indication that we had that Potts had a step-up in Sheffield was from Sheffield's own comments. In fact, if you read yesterday's RRG where it sounded like Tuberville (or someone) sounded-off-mic that Sheffield wouldn't be creating any headlines with his sound-bites. From a personal standpoint, I'm really glad this is over and we can just get back to thinking about things other than quarterback.