SB Nation - Stefan Loucks

Double-T Nation Daily Diatribe // 08.03.09

Seth C — Mon, 03 Aug 2009 11:23:48 -0000

Odds and Ends

It's strange typing out 08.03.09 this morning. It doesn't seem like August should be here already, but it is, which means that practice is right around the corner, this Saturday in fact, before the big concert (more on that later).

Texas Tech Football

The first place to start this morning is with the LAJ's Don Williams, who has a pre-practice report. There's a ton of good stuff in the article and I thought we'd take it bit-by-bit. Williams writes about the battle at left tackle, talking about how at the end of the spring, it was between Terry McDaniel and Chris Olson and offensive line coach appears to be willing to let the two of them fight it out:

"I’m going to have to find out who’s going to win it,’’ said line coach Matt Moore, who didn’t put a time frame on making the determination. "They’ve both had really good off-seasons. They’ve pushed themselves harder than they ever have. Olson’s gotten stronger and has experience on his side, but Terry’s just so massive.’’

I have no idea which way Moore will go on this, but I really like McDaniel. He could be a four-year starter if he gets the nod, at left tackle, and that's almost unheard of. Olson is talented as well, nothing against him, and I get the feeling he's going to get some burn somewhere along the line, but McDaniel is pretty good.

Follow me after the jump for more news, notes and links on your Red Raiders.

Williams then writes about defensive coordinator Ruffin McNeill and wanting 8 to 10 "playable players" to play along the defensive line. The strange thing here is that Williams mentions Ryan Haliburton by name as a player to step-up along the defensive line along with Chris Perry and Brandon Sharpe. Haliburton was okay during the spring, but he looked like a guy that still needs to add some strength and size to compete on the Big 12 level.

If I had to give my ten players: Rajon Henley, Richard Jones, Colby Whitlock, Daniel Howard, Brandon Sharpe, Victor Hunter, Chris Perry, Brandon Sesay, Pearlie Graves and Myles Wade.

And finally, looking at the defensive backfield, especially the safeties and the voluminous number of freshmen defensive backs. The most interesting thing here is that the defense didn't work on any nickel or dime packages during the spring. Huh. That seems strange. Here's McNeill:

"We wanted to wait until we got all the freshmen here,’’ McNeill said. "We’ve talked about the packages and what we want to do front-wise, coverage-wise, blitz-wise, but we didn’t want to do personnel finalization until the freshmen arrived.’’

Also of note, Texas Tech's practice is going to be worked around Captain Mike Leach's schedule, which includes going to to the John Mellencamp, Bob Dylan and Willie Nelson concert. Lots of other notes in the article, and I'll encourage you to click on through with notes on Kyle Clark, Joel Gray, LaAdrian Waddle, James Scott, Stefan Loucks and Aaron Charbonnet.

I posted the video on Friday, but TechPrezNB forwarded to me the accompanying article from NewsOK's Brandon Chatmon on DT Colby Whitlock, and as we discuss whether or not stars and offers matter with new Texas Tech commit Coby Coleman, let's not forget Whitlock, who had almost no offers and was lowly rated by the scouting services:

Few expected this type of impact from Whitlock coming out of high school. Several schools including Oklahoma and Oklahoma State passed on the opportunity to land him and Rivals.com rated him a three-star player. It's a good thing recruiting rankings and evaluations didn't matter to Whitlock.

"I'm not a person who that stuff means a lot to me," Whitlock said of being overlooked out of high school. "As long as some people are giving me looks I didn't mind it. I don't think that's real important, like the star rating, I think that's a joke, they miss (evaluate) a lot. Stuff like that has no importance."

I'll take Whitlock's word for it.

Again, I can't say that I understand all of the math, but Football Outsider's Bill Connelly (also of Rock M Nation) writes that Texas Tech had the best offensive line last year. And in terms of giving up sacks, Texas Tech's offensive line was significantly better than Oklahoma's line:

Not surprisingly, Texas Tech and Oklahoma possessed the best two pass blocking lines in the country. What is a surprise, however, was just how much better Texas Tech's unit was than everybody else. Third-place Boise State's SkRt+ was much closer to Middle Tennessee's (20th) than to Texas Tech's. Only Oklahoma had a SkRt+ within 100 of Tech's.

Snip

In case you were keeping score, here were the lines that finished in the nation's Top 20 in both Line Yards+ and Sack Rate+: Texas Tech (3rd in LY+, 1st in SkRt+), Oklahoma (5th, 2nd), Florida (1st, 8th), and Penn State (4th, 18th). Tech and Florida return a reasonable amount of experience here in 2009, while Oklahoma and PSU are lagging behind a bit in that department.

Fox34 is continuing their countdown of the top 25 players, and checking in at #5 is RB Harrison Jeffers:

It appears that former Red Raider Brandon Williams is doing well in his professional career. DMN's Tim McMahon writes that the Dallas Cowboys LB coach is happy with Williams progress:

"Victor Butler and Brandon Williams are what we consider doing things right now that give us hope that they have a chance to help us this year," Herring said. "They're showing some pass-rush skills -- things that are instinctive. They're explosive off the ball, quick get-off. Every day they're understanding the tempo and the speed of the game, learning how to use their fundamentals and their hands. They're showing some improvement every practice that gives you a feeling or hope that they will help us this year -- somehow, some way, at least special teams and definitely pass rush."

I found a couple of notes on recruiting, something that I really don't cover unless it's just finding video and links on new commitments, but thought I'd pass these two things along. New Texas Tech commit, WR Shawn Corker, attended some event earlier this week and this was written about his performance:

At WR, new Texas Tech commit Shawn Corker showed why he was one of the most coveted WR's in the state this year. He has no weakness.

And apparently another Florida WR, Kadron Boone, (he's a 4-star guy) is down to his final three teams: OU, Georgia and Texas Tech.

Big 12 Stuff: AAS's Kirk Bohl's asks if the Big 12 is overrated . . . The Oklahoman polled the players at the Big 12 Media Days and asked them a bunch of questions regarding the conference, including best and worst uniforms, best and worst fans, best and worst mascots, etc. (see the links on the right -- "Related Stories") . . . CT's Dave Matter writes that Big 12 defenses are still playing catch-up to the offense . . . DMN's Chuck Carlton lays out the likelihood of the Big 12 in 2009 running into the same scenario in 2008, a three-way tie . . . Tulsa World's Dave Sittler writes that the Big 12 North have become easy targets

Scouting the Enemy: SAEN's Brent Zwerneman writes about Nebraska Cornhuster defensive superstar, Ndamukong Suh . . . NY Times college football blog, the Quad, thinks the Houston Cougars are #30 team in the nation . . .

Double-T Nation Daily Diatribe // 07.24.09

Seth C — Fri, 24 Jul 2009 11:25:06 -0000

Odds and Ends

Quiet Before the Storm

It's actually a little bit quiet before the media storm that is Big 12 Media Days, although the Big 12 did release the media preseason predictions for the Big 12 (more on that later) and today the media is to vote on the all-conference players.

There were a couple of interesting things, the first being the broo-ha-ha over a Tennessee commitment suddenly changing his mind about being a Volunteer (an adidas school) and now looking at Kentucky, a Nike school, and friend of the John Calipari, Williams Wesley (if you don't know who he is, then read here). I'm not sure what the answer is on this, or if there is an answer, I'm merely an outsider looking in, but there's just a lot of stuff going on and if the NCAA were to really dig, I think there's a better than zero chance that they'd find something.

This brings me to Barking Carnival's Scipio Tex excellent essay on street agents. I won't try to summarize, but I think it's well worth your time.

Texas Tech Football

Big 12 Media Preseason Football Poll for the Big 12 Conference

There's really no surprise that the media is leaning towards the rest of the nation in that the Big 12 South is stacked with the Oklahoma Sooners and Texas Longhorns are tied for first in the South, Nebraska is picked to win the North and Texas Tech is picked to finish fourth:

2009 Big 12 Football Media Preseason Poll

North Division

1. Nebraska (17) 172

2. Kansas (12) 164

3. Missouri (3) 124

4. Colorado 100

5. Kansas State 81

6. Iowa State 33

South Division

1. Texas (17) 174

1. Oklahoma (15) 174

3. Oklahoma State 130

4. Texas Tech 89

5. Baylor 75

6. Texas A&M 33

first-place votes in parentheses

This is all part of the Captain's master plan.

Ryan Hyatt has his thoughts on the media's picks, and I agree whole-heartedly with this:

As for the media picking Texas Tech 4th in the South, we’ll see. I think there is a big possible swing of games for both Tech, Oklahoma State and Baylor this year. Both OSU and Tech could each be capable of winning nine games this year or winning as few as seven. The margin is razor thin. As for Baylor, I’m trying to see a big upside there in Waco beyond the hope of what their QB can do, but I’m not ready to punch their ticket to a bowl game just yet.

Players Big 12 Teams Cannot Afford to Lose

ESPN's Tim Griffin names the players that each Big 12 team cannot afford to lose and I'll give you three guesses, the first two are wrong, as to your pick, and Griffin's, is:

Texas Tech: QB Taylor Potts. Tech's new quarterback has never started a game before, but he's earned the starting job before camp ever began - a rarity in the Mike Leach era. With Stefan Loucks, Seth Doege, Steven Sheffield and Garrett Riley behind him, there would be a huge drop if Potts misses significant action.

I think there's a significant drop-off in talent between Potts and Sheffield. And just to clarify, yes, Stefan Loucks has transferred, so he's no longer in the picture.

Football Odds and Ends

Her Loyal Sons on the new rule change that punters that attempt the rugby-style of punt, will no longer be protected. I'm actually looking forward to the first punter to being laid out for trying that mess.

Chris Brown of Smart Football has a guest post with Dr. Saturday on deconstructing the Virginia Tech defense. Absolutely awesome read.

Double-T Nation Daily Diatribe // 05.28.09

Seth C — Thu, 28 May 2009 11:28:23 -0000

Odds and Ends

Tier One Bill Chubbing Along

I haven't changed the title to this article one bit "Tech's tier-one bill not killed by chubbing". In other words, Texas Tech's Tier One bill is still alive and FYI, "chubbing" which is not what you think, is excessive talking that some lawmakers used to kill the voter ID bill. Lubbock senator Robert Duncan is confident the bill will pass:

"Hope is still alive," Duncan said. "There is still a lot of parliamentary work but House Bill 51 is in pretty good and I am very confident that it'll pass as we sent it out from the Senate."

Pretty cool story about Kevin Laue, Manhattan College's one-armed basketball player. Good sports stories make me happy.

Bring On The Cats is outraged at the three-way tiebreaker with last weekend's Big 12 baseball tournament. Genius.

Texas Tech Football

Stefan Loucks Leaves Program

Tech Talks's Chris Level and Robert Giovenetti broke the news that RS freshman QB Stefan Loucks has decided to leave the program (hat-tip to TT4EVER). You always hate it when a player leaves, but Loucks saw the writing on the wall and that Seth Doege had passed him on the depth chart and I'll always side with the player that simply wants to play football and not sit on the sideline. I hope Loucks finds playing time somewhere.

Big 12 Revenue Sharing

ESPN Big 12 blogger Tim Griffin breaks down how each team fared in the revenue sharing for each team. Here's the breakdown:

1. Texas: $10.2 million
2. Oklahoma: $9.8 million
3. Kansas: $9.24 million
4. Texas A&M: $9.22 million
5. Nebraska: $9.1 million
6. Missouri: $8.4 million
7. Texas Tech: $8.23 million
8. Kansas State: $8.21 million
9. Oklahoma State: $8.1 million
10. Colorado: $8.0 million
11. Iowa State: $7.4 million
12. Baylor: $7.1 million

And keep in mind that this is how the money is divided:

The Big 12 schools divvy up all money equally except that which is generated from television.
Half of the TV money is divided evenly. The other half goes into an appearance pool. The schools that earn the most money are the ones who appear for football TV games and basketball nonconference games. Credits also are issued for NCAA tournament appearances.

Terry McDaniel #23

RRS.com's Aaron Dickens is ranking the top 25 Red Raiders and as mentioned in yesterday's Diatribe, DTN favorite and redshirt freshman LT Terry McDaniel checks in at #23:

HE IS RANKED TOO HIGH BECAUSE...: It is possible that Chris Olson, not McDaniel, will start at left tackle. Though McDaniel did run with the first-team offense for much of the spring, his relative inexperience was evident at times. There were times during simulated scrimmage periods where he struggled against the Red Raiders' pass rush.

I too am a little worried as to whether or not McDaniel is going to be able to step-in immediately, especially at left tackle. There's no doubt that he has the physical talent to do it, but that it may be a technique thing with McDaniel. I've got high hopes.

Texas Tech Basketball

Recruiting News

ESPN's Reggie Rankin takes a look at the Big 12 recruiting classes (hat-tip to DTN reader Phil for emailing the link). As you would expect, Texas, Kansas and Oklahoma are at the top of the class, but incoming freshman guard Aaron-Mike Davis was the sleeper recruit for the entire Big 12:

Sleeper recruit: Aaron-Mike Davis
Davis (Houston/Wheatley) is a 6-2 shooting guard who is strong and physical. He should adjust to the college game and Tech's system rather quickly because he plays with urgency on both ends of the floor. He can get to the rim and finish through contact or slide to the open area and knock down the open 3; he's best from the deep corners. He is a good ball handler and passer with the ability to help at the point. Defensively, Davis applies great ball pressure and has a good basketball IQ.

Cheating and Winning

The story broke last night that the NCAA alleges that Memphis had some serious violations, which in turns implicates Kentucky's new head coach John Calipari. I've asked this before and I'll ask this again (perhaps I need to do this in its own post), which is how far are you willing to go with a head coach that cheats or has cheated before or has been implicated in cheating versus a coach or staff who has never had their names so much as even mentioned with words "NCAA violations"? Say what you will about Pat Knight or Bobby Knight, but they have never cheated. I'm always curious as to how much that means to you.

Red-Black Spring Game Roundup // Red Offense

Seth C — Tue, 28 Apr 2009 17:00:13 -0000

Red Offense

Quarterback

I'll be honest, I thought that Taylor Potts looked pretty good. I know that there's some hesitation on his ability to quickly read the defense, but I think we may be a tad bit spoiled by the fact that the guy who was here the past 3 years read defenses faster than anyone before him. With that being said, Potts finished the day by only missing on 7 passes (20-27) for 211 yards, good for about 7.8 yards per attempt. Not bad for a sping game. Again, the most worrisome issue is the 3 sacks, but those were touch-sacks that probably wouldn't have been called in a game situation. The arm strength is noticable and my biggest hope is that Potts takes advantage of his arm strength by pushing the ball downfield a bit more. Harrell's biggest strength was his accuracy and I'd love to see Potts not be safe all of the time. There's a reason he's been blessed with a great arm, use it. I was also pleasantly surprised by Stefan Loucks. I was expecting something awful from him, but that's not what I saw. Granted, I don't think he's going to light the world on fire, but he's servicable. In fact, I'd say that Loucks was a bit off at first, but found his rhythm later and looked pretty good doing it. Loucks did throw into double-coverage near his own goal line (i.e. the Cody Davis interception for a touchdown) and those types of decisions will push you further back on the depth chart.

Running Back

It's the Harrison Jeffers Show! Actually, Jeffers looked okay, but as I was talking with kayakyakr, it seemed as if the defense was ready for him and that's not going to happen during the season next year. You did get to see Jeffers' ability to turn the corner and I think I praised him enough in the review of the White Offense. I will add that I think Jeffers is very competent receiving the ball out of the backfield. Not worried about that part of his game in the least. Aaron Crawford was injured and did not see any action, but I'm not counting him out of the mix by any means.

Receiver

Redshirt freshman receiver Austin Zouzalik received a gold star from me on Saturday. I have no doubt that he's going to work his way onto the field next year. And for those opponents that think Zouzalik is yet another slow white guy that plays receiver for Texas Tech, feel free. For those of you who were at the spring game, you know that Zouzalik almost ran down Cody Davis from the opposite side of the field during that interception return. Make no mistake, Zouzalik may be one of the fastest players on the team. Ed Britton appeared to be in mid-season form. Made some nice plays, but if I remember correctly, he did drop a catchable pass. If he'll just work on concentration Britton could be an All-Big 12 player. Alex Torres appears to be a very mature receiver and if he picks up at Crabtree's old position, you're giving up playmaking ability, but you have a very reliable player. Think Joel Filani -- size and reliable. I still like Adam James and Tramain Swindall are both solid inside receiver options and right now, Swindall is the starter with James working in behind him. Cornelius Douglas is the most intriguing player simply because he's short, but think I remember him dropping a or a couple of passes. He's intriguing because he did take a couple of direct snaps and looked pretty good doing so. With that being said, if Zouzalik can do the same thing, I like him as a Wildcat option a little better, if for no other reason than he can see over the defense a little better if he had to pass, although I get the feeling that Douglas is a better playmaker.

Offensive Line

The rest of the Big 12 isn't going to find out about Terry McDaniel until sometime next year, but I thought he was a star. I was expecting him to be a bit slow to react and having a difficult time at left tackle, but I didn't see that at all. In fact, I saw a guy who was plenty athletic and quick enough to handle left tackle for the next 3 or 4 years. Yeah, he was that good. I think if McDaniel continues to progress this summer, I have no doubt that he starts and there's going to be a lot of people talking about McDaniel's play in the very near future. I also could not have been more impressed with Marlon Winn. If there was ever a guy that could flip to left tackle without issue, it's Winn, but I like keeping the consistency of Winn at right tackle, especially with the emergence McDaniel. Lonnie Edwards seems to be the backup at every position and he'd played well at left guard during the spring game, as did Mickey Okafor and Shawn Byrnes. I didn't notice much pressure up the middle so I'm pretty pleased with these guys and I think that you saw 4 out of 5 starters at offensive line for the Red Offense. One other note, I saw Omar Castillo after the scrimmage and that guy is a physical specimen. Big, strong, and looks to be a player. I have no idea if the staff knows what to do with him, but he's the kind of guy that I could see moving to defense if this experiment at tight end doesn't work out.

Poll

Who was the MVP of the Red Offense during the Red-Black Scrimmage?

Taylor Potts

36 votes

Austin Zouzalik

18 votes

Harrison Jeffers

18 votes

Terry McDaniel

9 votes

81 votes | Poll has closed

Texas Tech Wednesday Morning Notes - Collective Improvement Edition

Seth C — Wed, 25 Mar 2009 11:12:33 -0000

Spring Practice is Here

via wr.swco.ttu.edu
Tech freshman football; 1930's.

Good times.

Spring practice starts today, I'm I've almost finished with the Red vs. Black battles, the last to be posted at noon today, defensive backs.

I was going to do a special teams preview, but there's not too much you need to know, other than there should be some real interesting things happening, with the hiring of a real special teams coach, Eric Russell, which means that we could see lots of different things. I'm also interested to see if Russell can somewhat resurect the kicking of Donnie Carona, who has a great leg, but couldn't seem to get any height on his kicks. Matt Williams is back, as well as preferred walk-on Brad Hicks, so there's competition there. Jonathan LaCour is the only punter on the roster, so I'm thinking he doesn't have much competition. There's your preview.

Matt Moore on Tech Talk

Lots of good stuff in the second hour of Tech Talk, where Chris Level and Robert Giovannetti talked with Texas Tech offensive line coach Matt Moore. It's to be expected, but Moore sounds genuinely excited about the guys coming back this spring. Had lots of praise for Terry McDaniel and his improvement over the course of his redshirt year. Also talked about Omar Castillo, the defensive tackle/offensive lineman (6-5/270) is being worked as a big tight-end, is a really good athlete and is catching balls to be ready for the fall, help prepare the defense for those teams that have a blocking tight end (OU, OSU, and Texas), and is a good athlete that Moore hopes he can develop a serious running game.

Perhaps the most interesting thing was Moore's philosophy in terms of how he groups his offensive linemen. Moore likes to have a rotation of 8 linemen: two centers, three players on the left side, and three players on the right side. This means that Moore essentially wants his starters and a guy that can play either guard or tackle. File this away as we move towards the fall and from what I could gather, this is how Moore sees his two-deep right now (let me know if I got this wrong, I was in a hurry this morning):

Left Tackle: Brandon Carter and Terry McDaniel
Left Guard: Lonnie Edwards and Chris Olson
Center: Shawn Byrnes and Justin Keown
Right Guard: Mickey Okafor and Deveric Gallington
Right Tackle: Marlon Winn and Joe King

Defensive Line Shuffle

LAJ's Don Williams writes that the Red Raiders will experiment with the defensive line. Defensive coordinator Ruffin McNeill says that he wants some versatility along the line:

"It adds more depth when a guy can play two positions and can handle it,’’ McNeill said. "We know what (Sesay) can do at tackle and we know what Ra’Jon can do at tackle, so let’s experiment with those guys at defensive end at different times during the spring.’’
Snip

"We still have five or six guys we can rotate inside,’’ McNeill said. "We want to find five guys we can rotate outside, too.

"By analyzing film, we found out when we were alternating guys up front and keeping them fresh — facing the spread offenses that we do — it helped us late in games. It’s helped us in each game in the fourth quarter.’’

This will be something that I'll be watching very closely. If Henley moves to end and Perry and Wade are able to step-up their game, then having a rotation of Henley, McKinner Dixon and Sesay at defensive end is a pretty good rotation.

Filling Positions

FWST's Dwain Price takes a look at Texas Tech this spring and all of the positions to be filled. Captain Mike Leach doesn't seem at all worried about replacing Graham Harrell:

"The thing is, I think it’s going to be very hard to replace him individually," Leach said. "But I think the overall unit of receivers will be stronger, because we have everybody back except [Crabtree] and Eric [Morris]. We’ve got a bunch of guys that are a year older, and we have a bigger receiver corps than we typically have around here. I just think the collective improvement of the unit could easily make for a better unit than we had last year."

At the end of the article, Leach says this about the quarterback battle:

"My whole thing is to say that we’ll do the best we can," Leach said. "So if we do the best we can, I think it’s pretty successful."
Still, most of Tech’s success will hinge on the play of Potts, a rifle-armed 6-foot-5, 215-pound junior to-be. Or will it?

"I think going into the spring the question is: who is the backup quarterback?" Leach said. "But if it turns out that development is farther along and it turns out that a guy is ready to go and plays better [in the spring than Potts], then maybe it becomes: who’s the starter?

"That’s ultimately what I hope happens. I hope it is a 'who’s the starter?’ situation."

This doesn't surprise me. Leach wants competition at every position, quarterback included, and it would probably be best for everyone if Potts is pushed by Stefan Loucks, Seth Doege, or anyone else on the roster.

And Ruffin McNeill is excited to see how players have progressed:

"I’m looking forward to seeing how the guys have improved individually ... there’s always some changes in each player from year to year," defensive coordinator Ruffin McNeill said. "I’m anxious to see how each player goes to the next level.
"We hope we’re in a position where we just reload instead of trying to rebuild."

Graham Harrell Honored by the Texas House of Representatives

Pretty cool. Texas Tech Quarterback Graham Harrell was recognized by the Texas House of Representatives, which passed a resolution honoring his "stellar career that distinguished him as one of the top quarterbacks in the college ranks."

"Mr. Harrell hails from a family with a strong gridiron tradition and he drew on the knowledge passed down by his father and grandfather, both of whom have been high school coaches," the two-page resolution partly reads.
"Mr. Harrell chose to don the Red Raiders uniform for his college career and first took the field in 2005. By the following season he was emerging as a top-flight quarterback, throwing for more than 4,500 yards and 38 touchdowns," the document goes on. "In his senior year Mr. Harrell helped engineer Tech’s bid for the national title and its dramatic victory over the number one-ranked University of Texas team at season’s end."

Red Raiders Take on Bobcats

Date	Start Time	Texas Tech Starting Pitcher	Texas State Starting Pitcher	Result
3/25/2009	6:30 p.m.	Colt Farrar (1-3, 3.00)	Matt Steiner (0-1, 7.71)	-

*Click on the score for boxscore.

The Red Raiders travel to San Marcos to take on the Texas State Bobcats to get ready for the weekend series against the Texas Longhorns starting Friday. DT's Mike Graham previews the game and notes that the team is looking to get a win on the road:

"We're trying to establish some consistency," Spencer said. "We haven't won enough on the road to say that we can do that."

LAJ's George Watson also has a short preview (pdf).

Red vs. Black, Spring Position Battles: Quarterback

Seth C — Tue, 24 Feb 2009 16:00:11 -0000

A position-by-position look at the Texas Tech Red Raiders heading into spring practice. "Classifications" are based on entering school next fall. "Probable Rolls" are merely guesses and welcome comments, thoughts and suggestions.

QUARTERBACK

Taylor Potts

Height: 6-5
Weight: 215
Classification: Junior
Probable Role: Starter

Personally, I think that Potts is the runaway leader heading into the spring. There's no telling what will happen during spring practice and Leach tends to pull strings of players if he thinks they aren't giving everything. Note to Potts: be ready to win this job.

Potts is a tall, strong-armed quarterback, something that we're just not accustomed to seeing as Texas Tech fans. Not to demean any previous quarterbacks, it's just that I think Potts is a completely different player and I'm really interested to see if he can make the progressions as quickly as necessary prior to this year. The advantage that Potts has over every candidate is time, something I think Leach values as much as some physical attributes. Physically, Potts has shown the ability to thread the needle and put passes where perhaps previous quarterback have been unable to do.

I'm a little concerned about Potts' wheels and hope that he can figure out how to step-up in the pocket or be able to scramble on those few occasions where he's not given plenty of time. I recall that last spring Potts struggled a bit, but the most part of that was probably due to him being behind a second or third team offensive line going up against the first team defense.

Seth Doege

Height: 6-2
Weight: 207
Classification: RS Freshman
Probable Role: Second string

Doege is the wild-card in this group. There are certain folks out there who believe that Doege might have an inside edge going into the spring. Keep in mind that Doege injured both knees in his high school junior and senior seasons and his last full season was his sophomore season at Crane High School. Doege has had a year and a half to learn Leach's system as he enrolled in January of last year and attended spring practices.

Those in Doege's corner believe that he has "it" and is a natural born leader. From what I've been able to gather, Doege is a bit of a gambler on the field and he does not have the arm-strength that Potts possesses, but he can throw the ball down the field. Despite having multiple knee surgeries, which I understand are not a chronic issue, Doege is a mobile quarterback and can throw on the run, make plays, and perhaps gamble a bit too much.

If Potts stumbles out of the gate, then it would not shock me or others close to the program to see Doege take the reins early in his career.

Stefan Loucks

Height: 6-1
Weight: 171
Classification: Sophomore
Probable Role: Battling for third string

I'm actually a fan of Loucks, although you can probably guess from his size, he's not the biggest quarterback and if I had to venture, he's probably a lot more Graham Harrell than Taylor Potts, but there's nothing wrong with that.

Perhaps Loucks biggest attribute is that he may have a more intimate knowledge of the spread offense than any other quarterback on the roster, because he played for Pulaski Academy, which was the team this past year that never, punted the ball . . . the entire season. And from reviewing film on Loucks, Pulaski Academy runs the offense efficiently and like most spread quarterbacks, he makes his reads relatively quickly, getting the ball to the right receiver in a short period of time.

Despite being a relatively light-weight, Loucks can put some zip on the ball and he can certainly air it out when needed. He has good timing on most of his routes and his highlights demonstrate his ability to move the ball all over the field, including over coverage and in tight spots.

Honestly, I'd love to see Loucks maintain his class ranking over Doege, but I'm not sure that will happen. Doege may be too talented to keep on the bench.

Steven Sheffield

Height: 6-4
Weight: 181
Classification: Junior
Probable Role: Battling for third string

I'll be honest, I don't know much about Sheffield and I'd imagine that Sheffield may be destined for as a career backup, which is 100 times more than I've ever accomplished in life. I'm struggling to remember much about Sheffield from last year's spring game, but considering this will be his third season in the system, if pressed into duty, he would probably perform reasonably well simply because of the experience.

Jacob Karam

Height: 6-1
Weight: 197
Classification: Freshman
Probable Role: Scout team and redshirt

Expect Karam to redshirt this season and play on Thursday night's with some regularity. Perhaps the most surprising thing about Karam is that he really does have some decent legs and it's not one of those attributes that we say it to make us feel better, seriously, Karam has some decent speed and is more than capable of making plays with his feet. Karam has good to decent arm-strength and he's got a good head on his shoulders, makes good decisions, but he's a long way from competing for any type of starting position for the foreseeable future.

Final Thoughts

One final thing to notice as we progress through the quarterbacks, is that the last three classes Leach tends to be drawn to a certain size and type of quarterback. Just looking at this sample-size, the general consensus is that he wants a quarterback that is 6-1 to 6-2 and has better mobility than maybe we've grown accustomed in previous year. Of Loucks, Doege and Karam, Loucks may be the least fleet of foot of all three, but Doege and Karam have more than scrambling ability and could be considered to be dual-threat quarterbacks.

I'm just curious if there's a possibility that Leach is maybe progressing a bit as an offense as he recruits his quarterbacks.

Recruiting Trends: Quarterbacks and Running Backs

Seth C — Fri, 14 Nov 2008 16:00:05 -0000

The 2009 recruiting class will be the 6th recruiting class where Captain Leach takes just 1 quarterback on scholarship. Thus far, Leach has recruiting Graham Harrell, Chris Todd, Taylor Potts, Stephan Loucks, Seth Doege, and Jacob Karam in successive recruiting classes. Over a year ago I opined that this was a pretty obvious trend with Captain Leach to take at least one quarterback with each recruiting class, and for how Leach runs his system, this works out well.

It got me thinking about the recent running back classes and it occurred to me that Leach has done the same type of thing at running back.

Below is a handy table along with recruit for the particular year and the Rivals.com recruiting stars.

Position	2004	2005	2006	2007	2008	2009
Quarterback	Graham Harrell (6'3"/205)	Chris Todd (6'2"/220)	Taylor Potts (6'5"/218)	Stefan Loucks (6'1"/171)	Seth Doege (6'2"/207)	Jacob Karam (6'1"/197)
Running Back	Shannon Woods (5'11"/194)	Kobey Lewis (5'6"/166)	Baron Batch (5'11"/200)	Aaron Crawford (5'11"/199)	Harrison Jeffers (5'9"/210)	Eric Stephens (5'8"/177)

I should probably note that in 2007 and in 2008 Leach technically recruited 2 running backs. In 2007 Jared Flannel and in 2008 Brandon Reid were each recruited as running backs. This past spring, Jared Flannel was moved to cornerback and just in case you're wondering, he's been an absolute special teams ace this year with 11 special teams tackles. That's good for 17th for the team. Watch out for #34 on special teams, he's usually around the pile more times than not.

Brandon Reid was also recruited at running back, but it was made clear from the beginning that the 6'2"/208 running back would transition to linebacker.

That leaves one quarterback and one running back for each class.

Quarterbacks:

It also got me thinking what is it about each one of these quarterbacks and running backs that Leach makes them "the one" for that recruiting year?

Taylor Potts: This guy is the future.

My initial thought is that the quarterback has to make quick decisions and mentally, they have to be able to handle the thought process of reading a defense quickly. In Leach's offense, it's more important to get the ball off quickly to the right receiver then to have a cannon for an arm. This somewhat explains why Leach doesn't necessarily sign "name-brand" quarterbacks. There must be something that he sees with each one of these guys that makes him think that they have both the size, relative arm strength and mental make-up to be a quarterback for Captain Leach. The exception here of course is Potts, who doesn't fit that mold at all. He is the strong-armed quarterback who has typically held onto the ball a little long, at least in spring games and mop-up duty the past two years, sans last week against OSU.

But the other guys seems to fit that mold in every way. Again, it's not necessarily about physical measurables with Leach, but I think it's about decision making skills. And this in itself is interesting to me because I think Leach does an excellent job of upgrading talent all over the field, but seems content with finding that one guy at quarterback, ratings and 40-yard times be damned.

Aaron Crawford: Only has 2 carries this year, but watch outfor next year.

Running Backs:

With the running backs, it's a little more difficult for me to figure out just one theory. I would imagine that each of these guys need to be able to catch the ball out of the backfield, but I seem to recall that Aaron Crawford had quite a bit of catching up to do last year in that department. There's really not a real rhyme or reasons as to the actual size of the running back, although I think it's important to note that Woods, Batch and Crawford are not smurf-like running backs, which is probably not in line with many peoples' stereotypes about Texas Tech running backs. Jeffers is also a decent size, but obviously Lewis and Stephens are on the small side.

Although I don't believe it's always about how big or strong a quarterback is for Leach, I think that he's more than happy to recruit the more physically talented and highly rated running backs. That's certainly a trend that I can handle.

Thoughts:

Of course the upside to this type of recruiting is that there's continuity if there's an injury. If one guy gets hurt then there's someone there who has experience to hopefully continue in place of the starter. The downside is that with all of these talented players there's quite a bit more competition and guys are only likely to play one year, two years at the most. However, Leach has shown that he's more than happy to play two running backs and he prefers experienced quarterbacks (see Cumbie, Hodges, and Symons) even if they only play for one year.

I'd love to hear your theories, and as a bonus, vote on which quarterback and running back tandem you think will have the most success at Texas Tech.

Poll

Which quarterback and running back combination will have the most success at Texas Tech?

Taylor Potts and Baron Batch

178 votes

Stefan Loucks and Aaron Crawford

7 votes

Seth Doege and Harrison Jeffers

90 votes

Jacob Karam and Eric Stephens

51 votes

326 votes | Poll has closed

North Division
1.	Nebraska (17)	172
2.	Kansas (12)	164
3.	Missouri (3)	124
4.	Colorado	100
5.	Kansas State	81
6.	Iowa State	33

South Division
1.	Texas (17)	174
1.	Oklahoma (15)	174
3.	Oklahoma State	130
4.	Texas Tech	89
5.	Baylor	75
6.	Texas A&M	33