Red Raider Gridiron: Stidham & Stephenville Play Lubbock-Cooper; Thomas' Pedestrian Speed

This is going to be a rough morning in terms of real content that gives us something to discuss. Luckily, DoubleTFaithful and MikeTTU will be around to help entertain you.

Stidham on ESPN2. Stephenville will be playing Lubbock-Cooper tonight and will be on ESPN2 at 8:00 pm at Tarleton Stadium in Stephenville.  For those of you who didn't read MikeTTU's recap earlier this week, Stidham was pretty terrific last week where he accounted for 449 yards last week:

Last Friday night, for example, the Yellow Jackets trailed Everman by seven in the second quarter. In an instant, Jarrett sped 60 yards for a score, then threw 25 yards for another as the Yellow Jackets (3-0), ranked No. 1 in the AP 4-A rankings, rolled to a 36-21 triumph. Touted as the nation's top-ranked dual threat signal-caller, Jarrett was on cue with 449 yards from scrimmage (220 rushing and 229 passing) and accounted for four TDs. With the Yellow Jackets leading 29-14 in the fourth quarter, his 15-yard TD strike to Austin Stufflebean closed out the non-district win.

And how cool is this? Former Red Raider footballer Dwayne Slay spoke to Cooper before their Wednesday walk-through:

"I'm pretty sure they've got a lot of jitters going right now with everybody telling them about this quarterback," Slay said. "This quarterback is good.' They're a little nervous and I told those guys, no matter who you're facing, get after them."

A Smidge of Positivity. FoxSports David Ubben has his week 4 pregame huddle and does have an encouraging note about:

Texas Tech may be struggling in several areas, but pass protection has been one of major improvement this year. Tech gave up 33 sacks a year ago, second-most in the Big 12. That number is aided by throwing the ball 714 times, 230 more than any team in the Big 12, but this year, you can't argue with numbers. Davis Webb has yet to be sacked. Baylor is the only other Big 12 team who hasn't given up a sack, and there are only two other teams (Syracuse, New Mexico State) in all of college football with that distinction. Texas Tech's 129 pass attempts are second-most in the Big 12 this season and would surpass West Virginia's 138 if Arkansas hadn't played a legendary game of "Keep Away" on Saturday.

Ubben also has his Big 12 picks for week 4 and it is a pretty light week for the Big 12 as a ton of teams have a bye week.

Pedestrian Speed. Since it is an off-week for Texas Tech, LAJ's Don Williams is left going through the archives of things (you can check out his twitter feed as he posted some photos from some old media guides, photos of Bill Parcels and Romeo Crennell) and Williams writes about when Thomas committed from Pampa and Williams used a certain phrase that motivated Thomas through his career.  Williams wrote the following in an article:

"Some recruiters, however, questioned whether Thomas' fiercely competitive streak could offset his pedestrian 4.8 speed."

Thomas would apparently bring up the fact that people thought he had pedestrian speed through his career:

"I used to love that," he told me. "I used to pull up the negative stuff and keep them and just remind myself, when I was starting to feel good about myself, that it can sneak up on you. I didn't ever want to feel comfortable. When I was playing really well, I would always pull out clips with negative comments. When I was playing bad, I would do the opposite. I would pull out clips that said good things about me."

Hmm.  Players saving negative comments and using said negative comments for motivation.  Sounds like Thomas had some maturity issues (if you don't know, my tongue is firmly planted in cheek and it's funny that players did this before Twitter and over 20 years ago).

Miscellaneous. Our friends over at Cowboys Ride for Free take a look at the comments from last year's game threads (I'm sure the VTM comments were the bestest) from last year's drubbing of Texas Tech vs. Oklahoma St. . . . West Virginia CB Daryl Worley has been charged with assault and indefinitely suspended from West Virginia's football team . . . Texas QB David Ash has given up football due to concussion issues.  This is a good thing from a perspective that his health is more important than football. We wish him well . . . also from Austin, DT Desmond Jackson is out for the rest of the year with an ankle injury that will require surgery . . .