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Good Sunday morning everyone. Just wanted to give everyone a quick update about the type of coverage you'll see at VTM for the football season. Over the offseason, I got organized and the staff at VTM are going to be publishing at least three articles a day for every week leading up to game day. On game day, there will be your open threads, plus a quick re-cap after the game. There will be a post on Sunday (at least one) and then we'll ramp back up again the next week. I've written almost all of my preview for Thursday, and I'm changing it up a bit and calling it The Huddle, which is both incredibly original and a bit ironic considering Texas Tech, as a team never huddles.
Must Reads
Must Reads
Year Two for Wallerstedt. I was just expecting this LAJ article to be about Matt Wallerstedt's year two as the defensive coordinator, but it ended up having the salaries for all of the assistant coaches, except for new special teams coach Darrin Chiaverini. We'll get to those salaries below. Kingsbury talked a bit about Wallerstedt's role as the defensive coordinator:
"I trust him to handle the defense," Kingsbury said. "That's why I hired somebody with that experience. I have a heavy focus on the offense, obviously, coaching the quarterbacks and game planning. So I trust him and that staff with that, and I'm excited about the carryover from year one to year two and see what kind of improvement we've made."
We've known for a while that Kingsbury quite literally lets Wallerstedt run the entire defense, from game-planning to calling plays to anything and everything and is essentially the defensive head coach.
Assistant Coach Salaries. From the link above, here are your assistant coach salaries:
Matt Wallerstedt, $425,000
Eric Morris, $260,000
Mike Smith, $240,000
Trey Haverty, $235,000
John Scott Jr., $230,000
Mike Jinks, $215,000
Kevin Curtis, $210,000
Lee Hays, $210,000
The article noted that Morris and Scott, Jr. both received raises this year, they also have a car allowance and received a month's salary as a bonus for making the Holiday bowl last year, which on a $200,000 per year salary is a bit over $16,500. Chiaverini's salary hasn't been released yet, but they expect it to be released right before the season starts. I'm glad that some coaches received raises and hope that this trend continues. I want this group to stick around as long as possible and I don't want money to be a factor for folks leaving.
Marquez Ready. Via the Midland Reporter-Telegram, Odessa native, IR Bradley Marquez, after spending the summer in Lubbock and not playing baseball, is ready and prepared for a big senior season. One aspect that I've somewhat thought about and glad someone did ask about is how Marquez' body changed after being in Lubbock for the summer workouts and offensive coordinator Eric Morris discusses that:
"Finally after putting in a full summer, he's ripped up and his body changed dramatically, which is going to help him," Morris said. "He's stronger, bigger, faster, which are all great things. He's been around his teammates and he was able to get the timing down with (quarterback) Davis Webb at his new position."
And Morris talks about what Marquez brings to the table as his own receiver, replacing one of the best that has played at Texas Tech in TE Jace Amaro:
"Bradley brings a whole new dynamic," Morris said. "He's a guy that won't hurt us in blocking. Brad is a guy that can block linebackers as good as anybody we have. He's 200 pounds and works harder than anybody we have. It will be a little bit different to how we game plan people and how we plan to get Bradley involved, but we definitely have a chance at big play abilities. Plus, you don't have to worry about anything else with Bradley. You only have to tell him one time and he'll get it. "
There's a lot more there, so go check it out.
End to Knights Kick-Off Event? Via the LAJ, the Knights of Columbus annual kickoff, after 55 years, may be its last as the Knights are unsure the level of support from the Red Raider Club going forward:
"We had a conference call with (Texas Tech athletic director) Kirby Hocutt and (associate athletics director) Steve Uryasz, and we were basically told that we needed to find another charity to give our money to, so it's kind of a bittersweet day for me today knowing that this could be our last one," Riojas said. "The event is called Texas Tech Kick-Off Knight; how do you have a Texas Tech kick-off night if Texas Tech doesn't want to be involved anymore?"
I would like to hear Texas Tech's response to this as I tend to think this may be a bit more complicated that just not being able to support the Knights. This could also be a liability issue if this isn't an truly sanctioned event and then we would be able to blame it on the lawyers because lawyers ruin everything.
Miscellaneous. Congrats to Michael Brewer for being named the starting quarterback for Virginia Tech . . .
