It's standard to have the press conference on Monday where Tuberville and two players that are chosen to speak to the media about the game that just happened and the upcoming game. You can find the full transcript here and the video here. While persusing the quotes, there were some that stood out to me:
HEAD COACH TOMMY TUBERVILLE
I'm excited about watching the younger guys play for the first time that I think will be household names for the next four years here at Texas Tech and both offense and defense guys like Blake Dees, LaDarrin (Pete) Robertson, Delvon Simmons, Sam Eguavoen. We'll have a tough time with that name, by the way. And then on the offense, you have Bradley Marquez, DeAndre Washington, Kenny Williams.
It's interesting to see Tuberville get so excited about the young players and have such confidence in some of these young players. Even a player like Kenny Williams, who will most likely redshirt or players like Dees, Robertson and Eguavoen, who were not highly recruited.
I also thought it was interesting that Tuberville is pulling back and just implementing about 50% of what he would normally put in for the game against Texas St., or this is how I read this statement:
I tell our guys I want to scale it back to 50% of what you've got in for a game plan, especially with all these young guys in. I don't want to put a player, especially a young high school guy in a position where he doesn't know what he's doing all the time, not just part of the time.
I don't recall Tuberville being asked to evaluate the defense last year, but Texas Tech was actually 114th in the nation in total defense last year. That's a small quibble as I think the greater point that Tuberville, and sometimes I feel like I've been making this point almost the entire offseason, that the defense was bad in just about any metric, however, Tuberville hopes to vault into the top 50:
It's not a big reach to say we'll be better than we were last year because we weren't very good defensively. We'll be better than we were last year. If we want to have an opportunity to compete in every game we play, this defense will have to go from 110th in the nation out of 119 teams into the top 50. And I think we have a chance to do that.
I think that's a realistic expectation, although it won't be easy.
I also thought it was interesting that Tuberville commented on tracking plays, which is what we're trying to do here at DTN:
Yeah, we chart everything. For defense we chart down and distance, what the team is doing on down and distance, we do formation, what they're doing out of each formation, run, pass. We also do personnel, personnel's on the field, whether it's receivers or running backs. Then we adjust accordingly for defense.
Tuberville also talked about having depth and that there were realistically, only 15 to 16 players that played last year and I think that sounds about right. If Tuberville is correct about his evaluation of some of the newcomers and freshmen, then having 25 on defense also sounds about right:
As I told you all last year, it takes 25 defensive players to play a college football game, and last year we were lucky to have 16, 15, 16 in a game that really we probably played more than that. But maybe 15 or 16 that had a clue what they were doing and could play major college football. There were times when we didn't have that many. But we're going into this football game. We talked this morning and 31 players on defense. Looks like we feel good about putting them out there. Now they know what to do, now can they do it? That 31, by the time we get to probably New Mexico will be whittled down to around 25. But we want to give around 31 guys this week an opportunity to play defense. Whether it's one play or ten plays, to give an opportunity to see what can they do? Are they going to be able to help us? It's going to be pretty close to that on offense too. The same amount or maybe a few more on offense. Depth wins for you. You win games with your first teamers, but you win a lot of games with your back-ups. They've got to playa and they've got to play a huge role in a college football game.
QB SETH DOEGE
Up next is Doege, who I wish someone would have followed up with the question as to the depth of the plays, but he does reaffirm that the offense is fairly basic, which harkens back to what Leach did. He also talks about running the ball a bit more and I still expect a 40/60 run/pass ratio:
You know, our offense is pretty basic. We have it a little in right now. We have it -- if you look at our, I guess play chart, you're kind of amazed on what we have in. We can dress up a few plays here and there, but overall I think we're going to do what it takes to win the game. I think we can run the ball a lot better than we used to. I think we're going to run it a little more than people expect and fire some shots after that.
WS CODY DAVIS
Finally, Davis talks a bit about the defense and I wish I knew what he meant from his second sentence other than it sounds totally awesome:
I'm really excited to see how the defense gels with the new scheme. Coach Glasgow bringing his fire from Sin City to the field, he's going to be a scary man on game day. You media people may want to watch out. It's going to be an exciting thing.
Davis also shows some love for Mackey, who not only brings his physical nature, but also a work ethic, which is what you would expect from a player who has bounced around from Hargrave to JUCO and now at Texas Tech:
Leon Mackey is a beast. You know, you look at him and he's a big, scary dude. Just can't wait to see him get out there on the field. He's brought some work ethic and just kind of team bonding to the team this summer, and hopefully this pays off in the fall.
I have run out of time for additional links this morning (I worked until about 9:00 p.m. last night as I continue to clean out the dang house. I now know why people hate moving.), but please feel free to post any links from this morning in the comments rather than creating additional FanShots.