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1. Podcasting Y'All! | I was asked podcast with Grant of EMAWdio and we talked all things Texas Tech for a good 45 minutes. Check it out.
2. New LAJ Writer | So, I think that the LAJ has a new men's basketball writer, Krista Pirtle, as she covered the Big 12 teleconference. To catch everyone up, both Nick Kosmider and Tommy Magelssen left the LAJ during the spring/summer, so they now have to replace two writers. As soon as Kristy Curry left, Magelssen left for the big lights of Dallas and Kosmider went to Denver. From what I can tell, Pirtle is a Baylor grad, but I don't care about that. Brandon Rawe is a UT grad and he's awesome for Texas Tech. Of course this is just one example and one example doesn't prove a point, but Rawe is really good at his job and I'm hoping that Pirtle is good at her job as well.
3. Smith Discusses Offseason | The LAJ has an article on yesterday's Big 12 teleconference. I think I like the RRS article is more descriptive. I didn't get a chance to listen to the audio, but there are more quotes in the RRS article. Also mentioned in the RRS article is the fact that last year's graduate assistant, Derrick Jasper, has been retained and head men's basketball coach Tubby Smith wants Jasper to be in more of a player development role and Jasper has helped because he knew the players. I hadn't thought about Jasper at all as being a link to the players, but I think that's a good move for Smith.
I've also previously mentioned that one of the reasons why I think Smith took this job is that there are five seniors on this team and Smith will be able to recruit five new players and mold the team how he wants. I think that was important in his decision making process. Here's Smith on the importance of recruiting next year:
"It's an important year for us," Smith said. "We have five seniors in our program that we have to replace. We've got our work cut out for us on the recruiting trail in July. That's the time to evaluate players. We're involved with guys and talking to them now, some of them we saw in April and some of them we were recruiting at Minnesota, we just have to make sure to follow them around the country in July."
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4. New Campus Photos | Just a whole mess of new photos from Totally Texas Tech. Check it out.
5. The Kansas Jayhawk Network | Yesterday Kansas and ESPN announced a new media deal and someone had linked to SI's Andy Staples and his thoughts on the deal and I thought it was really good. The idea being that Kansas' deal with ESPN is an internet deal, but by doing this Kansas already has a greater distribution that the Longhorn Network. Think about that for a second.
6. SMU Preview and Prediction | College Football Zealots previews the SMU Mustangs. I will actually have my preview of the Mustangs up today, so we'll see how that goes. ESPN's Ubben hates you and only picks Texas Tech as 10 point winners against SMU for week 1.
7. Kingsbury's Homecoming | Crystal Ball Run examines head football coach Kliff Kingsbury's return to Texas Tech.
8. Recruiting Scorecard | ESPN's Ubben despises you and he rates the Big 12 teams in recruiting in June. I don't care about recruiting rankings in June, but there you go.
9. Ranking Big 12 QB's Fantasy Values | RRS ranks the Big 12 quarterbacks from a fantasy football perspective and QB Michael Brewer is 5th.
10. New York City's Abandoned Island | So there is apparently an abandoned island right between Queens and the Bronx and there are some spectacular photos of this abandoned island.
11. Ivan Thomas and Texas Tech | The newest commit Ivan Thomas is in Lawton and their football team is practicing and the local paper talked to Thomas' head coach about what Thomas brings to the table:
"There's no doubt that he'll have a great deal of success at the next level," Breeze said. "They need a great nose guard for their system and I think Ivan will have to be double teamed. He reminds me of (former Sooners) Gerald McCoy and Kelly Gregg in that they have tremendous upper body strength and are quick. You don't see that combination very often."
12. Chasing Cave Dog | Want to read a SB Nation #longread on a guy attempting to climb all 55 of Colorado's 14,000-foot peaks in 10 days? Well there you go. It's terrific.