The Texas Tech men's chess team, The Knight Raiders, brought back to Lubbock their second straight National Championship trophy. The team, consisting completely of international players with none from the U.S.A., won the title by 8 points over the two teams that tied for second place with 7.5 points each, from The University of Texas at Dallas and University of Maryland Baltimore County, and New York University which finished fourth. They won the President's Cup for Tech's female coach, Susan Polgar , the first female to ever coach a men's team to two straight titles.

The Susan Polgar Institute, including the top players of the team are transferring this Summer to Webster University in St. Louis. An ammicable breakup, she leaves behind a strong base for Texas Tech to do well in the future. Thanks to Susan for leading Tech into the national spotlight in chess.

Yahoo is carrying a good story of Wes, though it is nothing we here on DTN did not already know. I think it is kind of funny how the media finally "gets it" about some things. Like many of you, I have been impressed with Wes's abilities since he first arrived at Texas Tech with little to no fanfare. Over the years he has developed a work ethic second to none. I wonder just how good some other "physically better" athletes would perform if they adopted Wes's routines. Since his injury a couple of years ago, he has developed his workout acumen to where it is probably the most invloved of any, anywhere. Creds to Yahoo for the story. Big creds to Wes for being "The Man!" Enen the Pats owner thinks so:
On Friday, Patriots owner Robert Kraft made it clear that Welker is a priority.

"I think Wes wants to be here and we want him here," Kraft said. "Hopefully when the season ends, both sides will be wise enough to consummate something. He’s pretty special. Any time there is a player on this team I can look eye-to-eye and be at the same level, he’s an important guy."

Former Texas Tech head football coach Mike Leach, now at Washington State, has completed his staff. In so doing, he has surrounded himself with familiar faces, as six are former staff members. His new DC is a good one with several years as a DC. The rest of the staff, if not a former employee, are highly capable. This strikes me as a huge contrast to the staff initially gathered by Tuberville. It seems that Leach not only has several familiar faces who already know what he wants, but the rest of the coaches are very experienced and should put forth a very good team offensively and defensively. This is a team that will be fun to check out throughout the coming season. The PAC-12 could very well be in for a rude awakening.

I asked Aaron why Tech did so poorly after AJ's speech and his reply was that I was blaming AJ for those losses which was a asinine thing to do. This guy simply proved to me that it is he that is being that way. All I did was ask a serious question. My reply back to him simply was that it was he who was being an ass. I don't think he likes me very much.

While this job may not be what many feel is the one Leach should desire, it is in his neck of the woods, gets him back onto the sidelines and gives him access to a great talent base. There is little doubt his style would be perfect for FAU, a school with an enrollment of 29,000. There is little doubt he would be good for the school in many ways. They said his ongoing litigation would have no bearing on whether or not he would be offed the position. I hope he gets this job, as it puts him in an area he is both familiar and comfortable with.

Tony Trahan has left the team. No explanation, although he had been nursing a groin injury. I don't know the whole story, but this is beginning to be a concern with as many defections as has happened over the last few months. I am wondering if the naming of Nancy and Perry as team captains this last week has anything to do with this. Whatever is going on behind the scenes at Tech that is leading to so many players checking out needs to be addressed and fixed. All kinds of things pop up when I am trying to assess all this, but the bottom line is that the coaches need to do whatever they can to ensure team stability, before losing even more talent, which can't be of any help.

Now THIS is something to write home about. This substantiates what I have been anticipating would happen when Seth Doege finally got to lead the Red Raiders. Congratulations to a great guy and OUR LEADER! GO TECH!

Listening to Bradley Marquez one gets the feeling he is way ahead of the game. He does not trash talk, but speaks very intelligently, picking his words carefully. He is very excited to be a starter and really like the fact that he can play inside, giving him a chance to use his quickness to get some space. He likes having plenty of room to maneuver and accelerate. I am excited that Bradley is wearing Tech lolors and playing for the Red Raiders, because that means they don't have to go up against him. Marquez, being moved inside, could wind up being the impact newcomer for the offense. We were all hoping for a 400+ yard average this year. Well, we could reach as high as 520+ per game. WRECK 'EM, TECH!

Wess may be out a few weeks with this, but I expect he will return more quickly than most players would with a similar injury. He is so good at rehabilitating that he will not let this keep him off the field for long, if at all. Prayers go out to Wes as he battles another injury that is always innevitable with his usual style of play.

The news tonight was heartbreaking:

Longtime Lubbock broadcaster and voice of Texas Tech football and basketball Jack Dale has died at the age of 79.

I grew up listening to Jack Dale calling the radio broadcasts of all of Texas Tech's basketball games. He was one of, if not the best announcers I have ever heard. He will certainly be missed. My condolences go out to his family. He was as much a gentleman as he was an announcer; a person of great integrity and knowledge. The crew now calling their games can only hope to be half as good. May he rest in peace.

Seth C Note: I had to change the link to the LAJ as it had been updated and would also like to add RRS.com's Robert Giovannetti and the official site has statements about Dale. Thoughts and prayers are with Jack and his family.

Michael Crabtree was the only Red Raider on this team, joining such players as Adrian Peterson & Jermaine Gresham of OU, Cam Newton of Auburn, Reggie Bush of USC on offense and Ndamukong Suh of Nebraska, Terence Newman of Kansas State & Roy Williams of Oklahoma on defense. Personally, I would have Graham Harrell on that team, but that's just me. I guess the Heisman got Newton the slot, beating out Tim Tebow and Vince Young as well. There are some other omissions, I think, but I really have not bothered to make a list so this one will have to do for me right now. How about the rest of you? Who else would you want on such a team? Have fun!

It looks like Baron is still making the news in Lubbock, tho it be via a Pittsburgh news station. I basically repeats some things we here on DTN have already read, but I think it is an indication that Baron may be someone Pittsburgh just cannot ignore. We all have seen how highly Steeler fans hold their favorite players and I have a good feeling about Batch and his chances to become one of the favorites of those fans, just like he did in Lubbock for the Texas Tech Red Raider fans. This article will certainly not be the last one written in Pittsburgh about Baron Batch. Following his career should make for happy times for the next decade or so.

Click through the pics and get a glimpse of some future talent, including Frenship quarterback Tucker Tuberville (yes, Tommy's son) and Abilene Cooper and Texas Tech commit quarterback Clayton Nicholas. What is the word on Frenship's Chad Quisenberry, shown in one of the pics? He just looks like the type that would be a great fullback. We may see some more commits after this show is over as Tech is, I am sure, watching these guys closely---from a distance, of course. We just might pick up some local talent. I will be checking back to get George Watson's full story on the tournament.

Texas Tech got its 14th commitment late Friday when Anthony Smith, a 6', 291 lb. defensive tackle from Houston, gave them his verbal. He has a 40 time under 5 seconds, benches 385 lbs, squats over 600 lbs, and got a 1150 on his SAT.

His Rivas profile link:

I think this guy is a surefire keeper. Right now he is listed as a 3-star. The commits just keep pouring in. My oh my.

According to Courtney Linehan of the LAJ, Merv Lindsay apparently decommitted. I think we have a pretty good class coming in and actually it is overstocked by one or two. This makes it a bit easier and better to keep those who have actually signed a LOI.

The quote from Linehan:
"On Wednesday, however, a Twitter exchange between Linsday and Tech signee Toddrick Gotcher indicated that Lindsay will not play for Tech after all. The conversation happened on their public Twitter accounts, which are followed by a combined 917 people.

"The two then took their conversation to direct messages, which are private."

Besides, after watching the video posted by Seth of K-Wag, we may wind up playing next year with a guy that could be the conference's best point guard, or maybe the following year. That guy has some amazing talent.

Mike Graham / Texas Tech Special Contributor for the DMN, has another story about the QB slot for Texas Tech. In it he makes a statement that Doege is clearly the leader to become Tech's next quarterback. He goes on to say Karem & Young will back up Doege, in that order, with Brewer probably being redshirted. I think it is spot on, for now. With the talent at QB any one of the players could suddenly jump up and become the starter, or at least the frontrunner to be the starter. For now, though, I think the article is pretty accurate.

Tech came from behind in the 12th inning to defeat the Aggies in an extra-inning game for the first time since 1998. Key hitting helped take them into the extra innings. Great job by the Red Raiders. Maybe they have foung a missing ingredient and can at least win this series. GO RED RAIDERS!

The women need to come out tomorrow against Iowa State and get back on the winning roll as they have opened Big-XII play 1-5. They are a better team than the record shows in conference so I sure hope they put it all together. GO LADY RAIDERS!

It looks like Mr. Hampton could not get it together enough to stay at Tech, so now he joins Miles Wade as "former" Red Raiders. I think Tech was not really counting heavily on Bobby being a big part of the defense, but he could have given some of the starters time off to catch their breath at times. What this does mean is that at least one of the incoming freshmen will probably be utilized to beef up the depth chart, instead of that person maybe being red-shirted. Personally, I am OK with this. I am not too sure Bobby was fully in to coming back and being a part of the team. Tech still have plenty of bodies so they will be fine.

If Rogers is held out of the game, Harrell may get a chance to be ready for back-up duties. One more injury and he could start for the Packers, a playoff-bound team. Now, wouldn't that be nice. After McCoy got his chance in a similar fashion, Harrell could follow suit and bet his chance, too.
"Practice-squad quarterback Graham Harrell would likely be added to the active roster if Rodgers is ruled out, but McCarthy said earlier in the week that he didn’t expect to make any roster moves until Saturday."
If this happens, it would be sweet if Harrell could make a great impression and keep his place on the roster. Another nice thing would be if GB could swing a deal with the 49ers for Crabtree, since they don't have a clue, it seems, of how to get him the ball. If ALL of this happens, I would have to become a Packer fan. Cold.

Texas Tech added Terran Petteway to its 2011 basketball class. He is from Galveston, Texas and plays all positions in his high school, Ball. He is apparently playing for an AAU team: The Galveston Hornets. His measurables:
* Ht:6'6"
* Wt:185 lbs
* Class:2011 (High School)

Go read the article. Welcome aboard to Terran.

Hershey Robinson, who went to Christian Life Center Academy in Humble to try and improve his grades and his game. He became friends with Javarez Willis, now a freshman guard at Tech, and noticed he was putting extra effort in outside of practice. Robinson decided to emulate Willis' extra work and has become the leader on the team. Welcome to the fold, Hershey. GUN's UP!

Mike Singletary said "The elephant was exposed"....whatever that means...as he stepped in between Michael Crabtree and Vernon Davis as he figured he needed to mediate the heated discussion.

It is interesting that Singletary said "Vernon and Crabtree -- just to let you know -- I will not talk about the issue. But I will talk about this. They were both wrong....Vernon just forgot temporarily that this is not allowed..."

But he also said of Davis "But he indeed is every bit the reason why I made him captain."

It is not the regular season yet so it appears some players are starting to get a bit testy. It would be interesting to be a fly on the wall to see just what happened to start this, though. Hopefully, both can get past this and play some football now.

According to Scout, the Red Raider QB tandem of Potts & Sheffield are ranked as the 12th best in the country:

12. TEXAS TECH
Starter/backup: Taylor Potts/Steven Sheffield
The buzz: Both have started -- and won -- key games. New coach Tommy Tuberville named Potts his starter last week. If former coach Mike Leach still were around, you wonder if Sheffield would be the starter.

A&M's QB's are ranked at No. 8, Baylor at No. 18 and Mizzou at No. 19. And Texas? No. 31.

There ya go.

I read the article and viewed the video. It does a pretty good overall job of previewing the Red Raiders receiving corps. In the video there was mention of Moore, who is on campus and learning the plays. Coaches think he can help the depth this year. The one guy not mentioned at all is Ben McRoy, who, I think, was covered in the running back writeup. But, they have him penciled in as a receiver here. The returning group is exceptional. The incoming and red-shirted freshmen are even more exceptional, needing a lot of reps to get where they need to be. With only 4 or 5 important players being seniors or juniors, the rest of the group will be able to grow into their rolls and be ready to take over without any problems. Tech is going to be well stocked in the receiving corps from now to forever, it seems. This year's group is indeed worthy of the excitement and anticipation we all have for the coming year. GO TECH!

At the Texas Tech Official Site, there was an article about the 12th practice and the Red Raider Luncheon, where a record 1800 people attended, with many more turned away. Dr. Jan Tillery, Guy Bailey's wife, gave a touching speach in Guy's absence.

SOME GREAT NEWS ON THE WAY
Some great news about Texas Tech University is on the way and will come out this weekend. Make sure you check texastech.com on Saturday!

I just wonder if this "news" has anything to do with Tech's Tier I Status? Very interesting.

Harrison Jeffers suffered a concussion just when getting back to speed after having back surgery earlier in the year. This kid just can't seem to catch a break. I hope he can recover so next week he can concentrate on getting ready for SMU. I also ho no more injuries occur, especially to any of the top players.