I'm not sure if anybody's still ramaging around here, but I thought I might keep things going with a post about spring practice. Here are five pressing (or not-so-pressing) questions for Texas Tech heading into spring ball, which starts this coming Sunday. Feel free to comment below.

1. How will the new defense look?

This is an almost-perennial question at Texas Tech, and frankly, I'm getting kind of tired of it. We're on our sixth DC in six years, and having asked it so many times, it's finally become clear to me how stupid the question actually is. Defenses don't stick to the 4-3 or 3-4 anymore. If the defense doesn't match up with the personnel the offense puts on the field, it's toast. You have to be multiple in the Big 12. I've lost track of how many times a DC came in advertising an "aggressive, attacking" style that will put offenses on their heals and cause five billions sacks and turnovers. But if the said DC doesn't have the players to pull it off, it's not going to amount to much. Which leads me to my next question.

2. Can Mike Mitchell and Breiden Fehoko be difference makers on defense?

There are a lot of reasons we’ve struggled on defense the last several years: coaching turnover, penalties, lack of depth, size, speed, etc… but one of the more glaring holes has been the lack of a playmaker. Guys like Mitchell and Fehoko don’t come around Lubbock too often. The Red Raiders have only had one defensive player drafted (Will Smith, 2014 7th Rd.) since 2010. Mitchell was a 5-star linebacker coming out of high school, one of just TWO linebackers in the entire country to receive that distinction from Rivals. He’ll be a redshirt sophomore this fall and might be ready to anchor a defense desperately in need of a leader. The other kid, Fehoko, probably needs more time to mature. But if he can build on his 6-foot-3, 290 pound frame, he could turn into the wrecking ball in the middle of the defensive line that Texas Tech has been missing for some time. Kingsbury says Fehoko will have every chance to start as a freshman, and at his size it wouldn’t be unreasonable to see him make an impact. Let’s see what he’s got.

3. Have our receivers been cured of the dropsies?

The Air Raid was infected by a nasty disease last season. No, it wasn’t fumbilitis, though certain players were tested for that. Nope, not the yips either. It was the DREADED DROPSIES! Reginald Davis was patient zero. He acquired the disease over the summer while hanging out with some UT football players in Austin. Since he wasn’t properly quarantined, it quickly spread to Jakeem Grant, who needed the entire year shake it off. By conference play, the entire receiving core was poisoned to the core, stripped of it’s ability to do the one thing it was put on this earth to do: catch the ball. I can’t remember being more disappointed in a group of receivers. This is a position we take pride in and usually recruit rather well. But last year there wasn’t a single guy who stepped up as a reliable threat. For the first time since 2009, nobody caught more than 70 passes. For all the flack Davis Webb got last year, he didn’t get any help from his wide receivers. If our offense really wants to call itself the "Air Raid" somebody has got to step up out wide.

4. Could Webb put pressure on Mahomes?

This is a question we’ll never learn the answer to. Only one of Texas Tech spring practices - the March 28th scrimmage in Midland - is open to the public. If Webb outplays Mahomes in the scrimmage, we could certainly surmise that Webb is turning up the heat on Mahomes. But in reality, we wouldn’t know anything because there were still 14 other practices we had NO access to. Expect the media muzzle to continue through fall practice. Mahomes will likely be starting week 1.

5. How will practice fit around Mahomes’ baseball schedule?

So spring ball goes from Feb. 28th to April 5th, but is still just 15 practices. We all know this was done so Mahomes could participate in spring practice while still playing on the baseball team, but does anyone know how these practices are being scheduled? By my math, there will probably be three practices a week. We start on Sunday, have a scrimmage on a Saturday (March 28th), and then there are 13 other practices scattered throughout the five-week period. I’m almost positive this structure is rare, and am curious as to what the practice schedule looks like, and what are the rules regarding time within that five-week period that isn’t actually designated to practice.