The Morning Stake: October 6th

Volleyball

Tennis

Golf

Basketball

original-double-t SI’s David Gardner and Chris Johnson have 64 reasons to be excited for the college basketball season and Chris Beard’s return to Texas Tech is reason #41:

It was an unusual off-season for Beard. After guiding Little Rock to the best season in school history, he was a hot commodity in the coaching carousel. Initially, he accepted a job as the head coach of UNLV, but he backed out days later to take a job at Texas Tech, where he had coached for a decade under Bob and Pat Knight. The Red Raiders return the core of a team that surprised many by going 19–13 and making the NCAA tournament a year ago. But the most exciting thing about the team this season could be watching Beard’s enthusiasm from the sideline. Last year during a locker-room speech, he broke his hand punching a whiteboard to pump up his Little Rock team, which competed in the Sun Belt. You can only imagine what lengths he’ll go to in order to prepare his team for the gauntlet known as the Big 12, and he should have little trouble catching the attention of recruits.

Also mentioned is reason #38 is the new Big 12 coaches, which includes TCU’s Jamie Dixon, Oklahoma State’s Brad Underwood and Beard.

Football

original-double-t LAJ’s Krista Pirtle writes about Kansas State linebacker Elijah Lee, who had 14 tackles last year:

“You don’t realize how much you’re running around against a spread offense,” Lee said. “Whenever you go to the ball, you’re trying to make as many plays as you can. You hope you do well.”

This weekend, Lee and the fourth-ranked Kansas State defense are faced with the challenge of reigning in another spread offense — Texas Tech.

Also from Pirtle is a Q&A with DE Jordan Willis.

original-double-t From the AP’s Jim Vertuno (via KansasCity.com) a story about how the worst job in the Big 12 is defensive coordinator and I agree with that to some extent, it seems like Big 12 offenses are incredibly tough to beat and if SEC or Big Ten teams had to deal with these offenses on a week-in-week-out season, things might be quite different. However, the quote that got me on this story was from OU’s Mike Stoops:

“It’s beyond ridiculous. The way (offenses) run to the line of scrimmage and the referee has to run out of there to snap the football. To me, that’s not football,” Oklahoma defensive coordinator Mike Stoops said. “What they’re doing to football is tough, it’s difficult. I don’t even know what to call it anymore; I really don’t.”

That’s pretty amazing and of course, OU plays fast with Lincoln Riley. Ultimately, the problem is that there’s so much space and the athletes on offense continue to improve the athletes on the defensive end have to improve as well.

original-double-t Miscellaneous . . . Land Grant Gauntlet’s Chris Ross ranks the Big 12 uniforms for the week with Texas Tech checking in at #2 . . . Sports Spotlight’s David Ubben predicts this week’s Big 12 games and has Texas Tech losing in Manhattan by 11 . . . Today’s U’s Wendell Barnhouse has a “Who is Nic Shimonek” article that pulls from the ESPN piece from earlier in the week. Interesting thing here is that Barnhouse was previously the in-house reporter for the Big 12 after a very long career at the Star Telegram and was replaced with younger folks . . .

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