SB Nation User Blog: Seth C

Texas Tech's Patience Knight qualified for the finals of the shot put at the U.S. Olympic Trials ...

Seth C — Sat, 05 Jul 2008 12:25:23 -0000

Texas Tech's Patience Knight qualified for the finals of the shot put at the U.S. Olympic Trials being held at Hayward Field in Eugene, Ore.

Knight Advances to Finals at US Trials

July 4, 2007 (via Lou Ann A) Happy Independence Day! I'll see you guys later in the weekend.

Seth C — Fri, 04 Jul 2008 11:51:53 -0000

July 4, 2007 (via Lou Ann A)

Happy Independence Day! I'll see you guys later in the weekend.

Will Smith Summertime (via DetroitRedX) Music I Like But Probably Shouldn't Admit In Public: I'...

Seth C — Fri, 04 Jul 2008 11:43:54 -0000

Will Smith Summertime (via DetroitRedX)

Music I Like But Probably Shouldn't Admit In Public: I'm not ashamed to admit that this is one of my all-time favorite songs, it makes me want to eat BBQ right now.

Texas Tech Thursday Morning Notes - Jack of All Trades Edition

Seth C — Thu, 03 Jul 2008 11:09:31 -0000

Double-T Nation News:

Complete give-up this morning. A couple of very brief notes, but I found a bunch of videos that seemed like good times for a holiday weekend.

For those of you who have tomorrow off, have a great weekend and stay safe, stay very, very safe.

Texas Football:

The NY Times blog, The Quad, is counting down every BCS team, and they are at Texas Tech opponent, Nevada.

We have a number of videos from the 1994 game against Texas, where the Red Raiders were able to defeat the hated Longhorns 33-9. The Red Raiders went 6-6 that year, with losses to Nebraska, OU, TAMU, Rice, TCU and USC in the Cotton Bowl. The wins included New Mexico, SMU, Baylor, Texas, Louisiana-Lafayette and Houston. Texas was 8-4 that year, and after this game in Lubbock, the Horns also lost to TAMU in Austin.

Up first, we have Zebbie Lethridge passing to Scott Aylor for the touchdown and Lethridge is also able to get the 2-point conversion to make it 21-0.

Zebbie Lethridge to Scott Aylor for 6 vs Texas in 1994 (via VirtuaCory)

This is a blast from the past, Zach Thomas blitzes and sacks Shea Morenz (he never had a chance and how about that running back? Good thing he's back there to help out).

Zach Thomas plants Shea Morenz on the Jones Stadium turf (via VirtuaCory)

I don't remember this at all, but damn is it good times. Shawn Banks takes down Priest Holmes for a safety.

Shawn Banks tackles Priest Holmes for the saftey Tech vs UT (via VirtuaCory)

Last, but certainly not least, Spike Dykes gets a Gatorade shower after the win.

Spike Dykes gets the Gatorade after Texas Tech beats Texas (via VirtuaCory)

Texas Tech Baseball:

LAJ's George Watson has a little more on Spencer's hire of Ed Gustafson, including this on Gustafson from Spencer:

"The first thing is he's a good evaluator of talent," Spencer said of Gustafson. "He's got a lot of experience at the college level and obviously at the pro level. The thing that he can do outside the recruiting area is he's been around the game a long time and has strengths in a lot of areas. I'd like to think we have a bunch of guys who aren't one-dimensional."

And this from Gustafson on what he brings to the program:

"I think from the evaluation standpoint and recruiting standpoint I will be able to contribute a lot there," Gustafson said. "If nothing else I am a little bit of a jack of all trades. More importantly, Dan and I speak the same language and can be a good sounding board for each other. We are very similar in terms of being aggressive and being fundamentally sound ... on how players should go about their business and the level of intensity and professionalism they should have. But I can also play devil's advocate with him."

First TD in Mike Leach era at Texas Tech (via VirtuaCory)

Seth C — Wed, 02 Jul 2008 11:23:16 -0000

First TD in Mike Leach era at Texas Tech (via VirtuaCory)

Texas Tech Wednesday Morning Notes - I Hate the Economy Edition

Seth C — Wed, 02 Jul 2008 10:55:25 -0000

Double-T Nation News:

I'm going to go a little off-topic today, but I think it still pertains to Texas Tech, or at least it pertains to me as it relates to Texas Tech.

I don't want to get into a political discussion about whether or not there is a recession, but has the current state of the economy affected your ability to root for your Red Raiders?

For example, I've decided to sell my truck, not because I can't afford the monthly payment, but rather because I can't afford to drive to Lubbock from the DFW area 6 or 7 times a year. My truck affects my ability to drive out to Lubbock. Of course, my other option is to fly to Lubbock, but I've always preferred the drive and right now the current cost to fly to Lubbock is anywhere between $69.00 and $122.00 (this doesn't include the costs for a cab). If I drive and average 18 miles a gallon, it costs me about $168.00 to drive to Lubbock in my truck.

Because of the rising gas prices, I'm probably going to purchase, if I can even sell my truck, a nice economical car, something that gets 25 or 28 miles a gallon. If I were to average 26 miles a gallon, that's about $116.00 to drive to Lubbock, which nets about $52.00 a trip (which is about the cost of a really cheap motel).

Now imagine me having this conversation with my wife, who could care less what type of car I drive, as I inform her that I want to sell my truck so that it makes more sense to drive to Lubbock to support my team. She said she was fine with it, but one year ago, the cost to drive to Lubbock was the last thing from my mind. In fact, until I sell my truck, I've put any trips to Lubbock on hold.

So this is how the economy has affected me, but has it affected you? Do the rising prices of, well, everything, affect your ability to purchase game tickets or am I absolutely insane in my desire to save money? My round-trip to and from work from my home is 3 miles, so it's not as if I'm looking at purchasing a more economical car because of my daily commute, this is purely related to the economic feasibility to see my team.

Texas Football:

We have two pretty interesting scheduling notes this morning,the first from SI.com's Stewart Mandell, where he ranks the Ten Season-Defining Games in 2008, and your Red Raiders check in against the Longhorns at #7:

7. Texas at Texas Tech, Nov. 1. The schedule sets up favorably for the Red Raiders -- who return QB Graham Harrell, WR Michael Crabtree and eight other starters on offense -- to make a run at their first Big 12 South title, but to do so they'll almost certainly have to snap their five-game losing streak to the Longhorns. The ever-outspoken Mike Leach claims poor officiating contributed to the past two defeats.

The fact that Texas Tech is even on this list is somewhat of a moral victory for me. Being part of the conversation means that Texas Tech is becoming more and more relevant from a national perspective and this is a good thing.

The other bit of news is from Da Wiz, along with The National Championship Issue, as they, "measure how difficult a non-conf schedule a team tried to arrange" (click here for the actual study and here for Texas Tech's data). Texas Tech makes a couple of appearances (sooo ashamed), but I think the overall theme to take away from this is that every team schedules easy opponents or refuses to travel during the non-conference portion of the season. No conference is immune from scheduling cupcakes.

Fox34 takes a look back at the Iowa State game.

How about this gem, this is the first touchdown in the Mike Leach era, which should have been against New Mexico (Texas Tech won, 24-3).

First TD in Mike Leach era at Texas Tech (via VirtuaCory)

Texas Tech Head Baseball Coach Dan Spencer announced today the completion of his coaching staff w...

Seth C — Wed, 02 Jul 2008 01:11:43 -0000

Texas Tech Head Baseball Coach Dan Spencer announced today the completion of his coaching staff with the hiring of Ed Gustafson as an assistant coach.

Ed Gustafson Named Assistant Baseball Coach

Profile of an Opponent: Southern Methodist University Mustangs

Seth C — Tue, 01 Jul 2008 11:13:39 -0000

Profile of an Opponent:

School: Southern Methodist University
Website: SMUMustangs.com
Mascot: Mustangs
Location: Dallas, Texas
Blogs: PonyFans.com; SMU Football Blog (not updated since January)
Conference: Conference USA
2007 Record: 0-11 (0-8)
2008 Prospectus: Sorta

Season Statisitics: (National Rank)

Rushing Offense: 170.17 (42)
Passing Offense: 252.08 (41)
Passing Efficiency: 127.78 (56)
Total Offense: 422.25 (37)
Scoring Offense: 28.33 (54)
Rushing Defense: 197.25 (99)
Pass Defense: 301.42 (116)
Pass Efficiency Defense: 138.36 (92)
Total Defense: 498.67 (116)
Scoring Defense: 39.75 (117)
Turnover Margin: -0.75 (104)
Sacks: 1.67 (88)
Sacks Allowed: 2.50 (85)

Generally: A dismal 1-11 season in 2007 led to the firing of Phil Bennett and the hiring of June Jones. I suppose the most interesting thing, and I think that most Texas Tech fans can attest to this, is that the offense didn't need much help. The Mustangs were good to pretty good on offense, but it was the defense that absolutely failed them. SMU was 116 out of 119 in total defense last year, only behind UTEP, Rice and Minnesota (Umm, I had no idea that Rice and UTEP were also that bad on defense last year.). I don't know how much Jones is going to be able to change the defense, especially in such a short period of time (we Texas Tech fans know that this sort of thing takes time) so I wouldn't be surprised to see a similar result to last year.

Offense: Justin Willis returns, but I think it's safe to say that he's not on solid footing with June Jones. Willis was suspended early in the spring, but was reinstated by the end of may. I've always like Willis' game, thought he was the perfect type of quarterback at SMU - because he can't get yards a number of ways, he's creative and exciting. Willis was 13th in the nation in total offense in the country (303.58) and helped this offense score over 28 points a game. He's solid.

But perhaps SMU's biggest fault (and the same could be said about Texas Tech to an extent) is that SMU is 76th in the nation in time of possession, so a defense that struggles is on the field quite a bit (Texas Tech was 104th) and probably adds to the Mustang's woes.

Leading receiver Emmanuel Sanders returns for his junior year and was by far the Mustangs most productive receiver with 74 receptions for 889 yards and 9 touchdowns. Columbus Givens also returns and he caught 42 passes for 386 yards and 4 touchdowns. The rest of the returners don't have huge numbers.

Running back James Mapp also returns and although he didn't play much against Texas Tech (6 rushes for 27 yards) he ended up with 526 yards for the year. Keep in mind that Willis led the team in rushing with 699 yards and much like Texas Tech, SMU needs to get a little more from their running game, especially in terms of production of touchdowns.

Defense: SMU is awful on defense (again, as a Texas Tech fan, I'm talking from experience) and it doesn't look to get better this year. Statistically, SMU wasn't very good in any category and as I peruse their depth chart, this team is awfully young in some important positions.

On the defensive line, the Mustangs return two seniors, Patrick Handy (11 tackles) and Serge Elizee (22 tackles). The bad news is that the Mustangs are really young at defensive end, with 3 sophomores returning, Anthony Sowe (1 tackle), Jordan Johnson (10 tackles, 0.5 sacks), and Youri Yenga (27 tackles, 2.5 sacks), and 1 junior, Adrian Dizer. Not just a ton of production returning.

The linebacking corp is also young with 2 sophomores, Justin Smart (29 tackles) and Pete Fleps (10 tackles), and 1 senior, Will Bonilla (82 tackles). Again, as you can tell, there's just not a lot of production here, other than Bonilla and that would be worrisome.

The pass defense is in much of the same boat as the rush defense, of the 8 players listed on the Mustang depth chart only 3 are juniors, KJ Ellis (FS), Rock Dennis (SS) and Bryan McCann (CB), the rest are freshmen and sophomores. It's going to be tough for the Mustangs to defend the pass for the year.

As an aside, I should point out that the Mustangs return an incredible punter in Thomas Morstead who was 8th in the nation in yardage.

YouTube: I have no other reason to post this video other than the glimpses of the very cute Erin Hawksworth of WFAA's Channel 8:

SMU v. UNT Rivalry - Erin Hawksworth talks to fans (via dallassportsdude)

Okay, back to football.

There's over 10 minutes of footage from the SMU v. UTEP game last year and the first thing that you notice is the awful rush defense and passing defense. The SMU defense gives up big chunks of yards to the Miners. That's the biggest problem (there's a point about 2 minutes into the footage that the announcer calls the SMU defense rugged). This is a UTEP highlight video, but I think you get the point.

UTEP overtime win vs SMU (via vader519)

Surprisingly, there's not much video out there of the 2007 season and as a result, I give you Michael Crabtree highlights:

Michael Crabtree (via Laconic913)

What I Think: I've always had somewhat of a soft spot for SMU. I can't figure out why, but I do. I'd like to seem them succeed, just so long as it's not against Texas Tech. I think we should expect the same type of success that the Red Raiders are expecting against Eastern Washington. There's just not much there on defense and I just don't see how the Mustangs keep up, at least not this year. It's going to take some time for June Jones to get that program on track, but it's not going to happen in 2008.

Texas Tech Tuesday Morning Notes - Defense A Priority Edition

Seth C — Tue, 01 Jul 2008 11:10:51 -0000

Texas Football:

Behind the Stripes Dave Matter ranks the Big 12's best coordinators (Matter listed the top assistant coaches in the Sunday paper as well) and breaks them down on the blog between defense and offense:

3. Ruffin McNeill, Texas Tech: Longtime respected special teams coach took over Red Raiders defense midway through last season and made defense a priority in Lubbock.

And:

1. Dana Holgorsen/Mike Leach, Texas Tech: Disclaimer time. Yes, Leach is TTU’s head coach, but he also designs the offense and calls the plays. Holgorsen, who’s listed as the coordinator, has been with Leach for eight years, meaning he’ll probably be plucked away as a head coach soon.

This could be an important list to tuck away as almost any program could face the prospect of losing their head coach. A few folks mentioned Christensen's name if Leach were to leave and I suppose that KU's Ed Warinner would also be an option if he maintains the same type of success at KU this year.

I'm also somewhat surprised to see McNeill at #3 of the defensive coordinators, especially considering the length of time that he's actually been a coordinator. Of course, I'd probably move Missouri's and Colorado's defensive coordinators above McNeill, just because of what has happened the previous few years when those teams met Texas Tech. Still, pretty nice to see.

As far as Matter's ranking of assistant coaches, McNeill checks in at #9 amongst all assistant coaches:

9. Ruffin McNeill, defensive coordinator, Texas Tech: That’s not a misprint, and yes, they do play some defense in Lubbock. After Mike Leach made McNeill made his interim coordinator midway through last season, the Red Raiders gradually developed a potent defense, enough to produce the Big 12’s third-ranked unit by season’s end. In January, Leach removed the interim tag.
"What impresses me most," Leach told the Dallas Morning News, "is the energy he creates."

Who else gets the feeling that Matter genuinely respects McNeill, which, by the way, is incredibly refreshing.

The only other names that I'd throw out there, are perhaps offensive line coach Matt Moore and Dennis Simmons and Lincoln Riley. They've all had pretty productive units, despite relative inexperience at coaching.

Who am I missing and would you add anyone else?

RedRaiderSports is running down the top 25 most important players for Texas Tech and Bront Bird checks in at #19. This one is free, so go check it out.

If you want good football reading, then check out Smart Football, but Chris just posted a really interesting and incredibly in depth analysis on Pass Protection, the Super Bowl, Tom Brady, and the Blind Side and Texas Tech's Mike Leach gets some credit for innovating the wide linemen splits and a highlight of a jailbreak screen, which we are all familiar with:

This approach obviously requires offensive tackles with some ability, but the logic is sound: I will make the path to my QB as far for you as possible. And if we run our offense correctly, the ball should be gone. (Remember what I said at the beginning about how most sacks are the result of the QB holding onto the ball too long? Leach has transformed this rule of thumb into a philosophical mantra.)

College football's top pass-receive tandem from 2007 has been named to the Maxwell Award preseaso...

Seth C — Tue, 01 Jul 2008 00:52:27 -0000

College football's top pass-receive tandem from 2007 has been named to the Maxwell Award preseason watch list, announced Monday by Maxwell Football Club President Ron Jaworski. Red Raider quarterback Graham Harrell and wide receiver Michael Crabtree connected 134 times for 22 touchdowns and 1,962 yards, all NCAA freshman records for Crabtree.

Harrell, Crabtree on Maxwell Watch List